niYSICAL SURVEY OF VIRGLMl. 



HER GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION; 



t^ 



COMMERCIAL ADVANTAGES AND NATIONAL IMPORTANCE. 



PRELIMINARY REPORT 

MrF'/MAURY, LL.D., Etc., Etc., 

PROFE380R OF PHYSICS, VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE, LEXINGTON, VA. 

Gen. FRANCIS H. SMITH, A. M., Scpebintendent. 



MARCH, 1809. 




SEOOISriD JDTDXIPXOlSr. 



NEW YORK: 
D. VAN NOSTRAND, PUBLISHER, 

as ItiRRAT Stkkkt and 27 NVarrkx STRlirr. 
18G9. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, m the year 1869, by 

D. VAN NOSTUAND, 

la the Clerk's Office of the District Court of tho United States for the Southern Disirlcl of 

Now York. 






rRELIMINyVRY REPORT. 

No. 1.' 



Offick of Phtsical Subtet, November, 18C8. 

Gen. F. H. Smith, 

SupcrinteBdent Virginia Miiiiary Institute, Lexington. 

General : — In entering upon the duties of the office which has 
been assip;Tied me in connection with the noble State Institution 
over which you preside, it has appeared most advisable, first to col- 
lect and embody in a series of Preliminary Reports, all existing 
information bearing upon the ol)jccts of the survey. 

These obiccts briefly stated arc, to develop the physical resources 
of the Staft, to make known its geogi'aphy, and to point out the 
great commercial advantages which naturally arise from its situ- 
ation with regard to the sea and the interior ; to show the na- 
tional importance of that situation and the benefits to arise from 
turning it to account ; also, to collect from the people and embody 
in Uke manner all the infonnation already possessed by them, as to 
the cUmatc, soil, and productions of the State, its mineral resources, 
water-power and manufacturing facilities, to the end that industry 
may bo stimulated, enterprise encouraged, the material prosperity 
of the people advanced, and the general welfare of tho country 
promoted. 

Considering tho circranstances under which recent events have 
placed the people of Virginia, I have thought it best to address 
myself in this preliminary work, first to an economic stiuly of tho 
geographical position of the State, with the especial view of pointing 

• Since tho date of tha provions report better Honrr-efl of information hdvo come 
within my reach. Tho materials derived therefrom are so important as to juHtify 
a recast, and the demand for copies so great an to C4ill for a now edition. 

M. F. Madbt. 

3l3t Uarch, 1869. 



out the commercial advantages of tliat position, its bearing upon the 
common defence, and the national importance which it gives to its 
two grand lines of internal improvement which I shall point out, 
and which are designed to connect the Western States with its 
seaport towns. 

These advantages are so pervading, that other States, with the 
nation at large, are as much interested in turning them to account 
as is Virginia herself. 

Naturally and both in a geographical and miHtary point of view, 
Norfolk with Hampton Roads at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay 
as its lower harbor, and San Francisco inside of the Golden Gate in 
California, occupy — one on the Pacific, the other on the Atlantic — 
the most important maritime positions that he within the domains 
of the United States. They curtain the entire ocean front of the 
country East and West. 

Each holds the commandmg point on its own side ; each has the 
finest harbor on its coast ; and each, with the most convenient ingress 
and egress for ships, is as safe from wind and wave as shelter can 
make them. Nor is access to either ever interrupted by the frosts of 
winter. In the harbors of each, there is water and room to berth 
not only all the ships of commerce, but the navies of the world also. 

Government, appreciating the importance of these two havens of 
the sea in their military aspects, has designated them as the prin- 
cipal naval ptation on each coast, and has encouraged with marked 
Hberahty the construction of a system of internal improvements de- 
signed to connect the port of California with the interior for the 
distance of more than a thousand miles by rail. 

But so far, Congress has done nothing for bringing that interior 
into connection with the port of 'Vii'ginia, notwithstanding the 
bearings of such controUing geographical and commercial facts as 
these, viz. : 

1st. The great commercial marts of the world lie on the shores, 
not of the Pacific but of the Atlantic Ocean, and by reason of its 
river system the whole country on this side of the Rocky Moun- 
tains is naturally tributary to the Atlantic. 

2d. The commercial tendency of the agricultural produce of the 
Mississippi valley is to seek outlets, not to the West, but to the 
East. 

The last-named fact has impressed itself upon the intci-nal im- 
provements of the country, and so influenced them in their line of 



direction that now not one tithe of the produce of that valley seeks 
an outlet by river to the south into tiie Gulf of Mexico, but by rail 
and water eastwardly into the Atlantic. 

And as the inland States of the Mississippi valley have extended 
their improvements eastward, so as to reach the Atlantic seaboard, 
so have their commercial cities flourished and the people prospered. 
In illustration, compare Ohio and Cincinnati, Illinois and Chicago, 
with Kentucky and Louisville. There is not a single railway that 
crosses the eastern borders of Kentucky ; the consequence is, there 
is no State east of the Mississippi that is commercially so far removed 
from the Atlantic seaboard and from the highways of commerce as is 
Kentucky. And through lack of shorter and cheaper routes to the 
sea, commerce in all the inland States of the Mississippi valley lan- 
guishes. 

For the year ending 30th June, 1867, the total specie value of the 
domestic exports of the country amounted (in round numbers) to 
$334,400,000 ;* of this sum, $317,000,000 went to countries bordering 
on the Atlantic. The countries which took the remaining $17,000,- 
000, or 5 per cent., are, it is true, washed by the waters of the Pacific ; 
yet the voyage outward and homeward to the best customers among 
them is on account of the winds and currents farther from the Gold- 
en Gate of California than fi-om the Capes of Virginia. This shows 
the importance of a great national highway from these States to the 
Chesapeake Bay, their nearest and best haven of the sea. 



THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC OCEANS IN THEIR COMiEEECIAL ASPECTS. 

These two oceans present in their physical features and geograph- 
ical relations, contrasts as marked as is the difference in their com- 
mercial importance to us. The Atlantic is a long and narrow ocean 
— it is easily traversed. Modern improvements and discoveries in 
navigation have brought its most distant ports within two or three 
wfecks' sail from the harbors of the Chesapeake. 

The Pacific is as wide as the Atlantic is long. The round voyage, 
under canvas to India or Australia requires as much time for its 
accomplishment fi-om the ports of California as it does fi'om the 
shores of Vu'ginia. 

Therefore, to connect the port of California by a great national 
work with the Mississippi valley, and then to leave the harbors of 



• Annual Report of the Bureau of Statistics, 1S67. 



6 

the Chesapoakc out, vrould bo like forging the two ends of a chain 
and leaving out the connecting link in the middle. Thus unconnect- 
ed, no cable can subsei'vo half its purpose, nor can it, in times of 
storm and tempest, hold, for want of scope, the ship to her moor- 
ings. 

That the Atlantic is the most commercial of the four gi-eat oceans, 
is owing to the same cause which makes the harbors of the Chesa- 
peake so important by reason of then- physical aspects, viz. : Geo- 
graphical Position. The greatest and the longest rivers of the earth 
empty into the Atlantic Ocean. All Eui'ope is commercially tribut- 
ary to it ; so also is the greater part of Africa, and through the 
Mediterranean, all of Algeria, Egypt, and Asia Minor. On its west- 
ern shores, the whole of South America, except that narrow strip 
(about 120 miles in breadth) which lies between the Andes and the 
Pacific Ocean. All these countries must look to the Atlantic for an 
outlet to the mai'kets of the world ; so must the whole of North 
America ever do that lies on this side of the Rocky Mountains. 
For this reason the great movements of produce are, in Europe, to 
the westward ; in America, to the eastward, i. e., toward the Atlantic 
on both sides. 

Those regions which nature has made tributary to the Atlantic are 
the regions over which the Christian nations of the world hold chief 
sway. They have the most wants, for they are most enlightened ; 
they are, therefore, the most commercial and mighty. 

With them " COMMERCE is king ;" and^ nothing that man can 
remove is permitted to stand in its way. In obedience to its dictates 
the Government of the United States is, with a munificent hand, en- 
couraging the construction of gi'cat trunk lines of railway from the 
Pacific Ocean to the navigable waters of the Mississippi valley. By 
an air-line, the terminus of these roads on the Mississipjii is nearer 
to Norfolk than to New York ; that of the Northern by 100, and that 
of the Southern, oi)posite to Memphis, 177 miles. 



WATER iVTTORDS THE CHEATEST TRANSPORTATION. 

Of all modes of transportation, that by water is the cheapest, and 
were the two main lines which the natural features and position of 
Virginia so highly favor, completed, viz. : one fi'om the Ohio river, 
the other from the Tf^nnesseo, and each leading to the waters of the 
Chesapeake, then the distance from the heart of the Mississiiiju val- 
ley, taken as at the ;mouth of the Ohio to the sea, will bo, by tho 



James River and Kanawha Canal, 779 miles less than it now i/j by 
Northern lakes, and 1,G70 miles less than it is, by Gulf and sea, to 
New York. 

So circuitous, inconvenient, and expensive are existing routes by 
Lake and Gulf, that "Western fanners are now compelled to pay G8* 
cents on every bushel of wheat that is sent as far as from Dubuque, 
Iowa, to New York. 

Mr. Abert, of the U. S. Engineer Corps, in his oflicial report on 
the navigation of the Illinois river and a ship canal thence to Lake 
Michigan, says that statistical reports of Lake Boards of Trade 
and the report of the Chicago Convention " show that present rates 
of freight through the Illinois and Michigan Canal, the Great Lakes 
and the New York canals, amount to a prohihilion on corn grovnt one 
hundred miles west of Chicago .' "f The natural faeilitics afforded 
by Virginia for a nearer way to the sea will, when they are 
properly taken advantage of, unlock all the country that is thus 
•shut up. 

With the Virginia water line completed, trans-Mississippi grown 
corn may be transported and put on board ship in Hampton Roads 
at less than half the cost that now attends its transportation alone 
to New York. 

The people of the Great "West are entitled to the cheapest high- 
way to the sea that nature allows and that art can construct. For 
the want of such a way many of them have been, and are now 
paying more than one-half, and some of them as much as two-thirds 
the value of their produce to get it to the seaboard. Are they not 
entitled to a free right of way to its nearest and best havens? The 
sea is the common highway of nations, and all the peojjlcs of Eiuope 
have free access to it. 

For want of such a way through the Mississippi river the tran- 
quillity of the country was once endangered, and to. .secure it the 
purchase of Louisiana was effected. Subsequent inventions and im- 
provements have so changed the routes and increased the businofis 
of commerce that the Mississippi river no longer suffices for the 
"West and its trade. The same necessity which dictated the pur- 
chase of Louisiana now demands the construction of these two 
great lines of improvement through Virginia. The purchase of 
Louisiana cost ^lo, 000,000, and the population of the whole country 
was then only six millions ; it is now near forty. 

• Official Hoportfl, United Statea .\rmy. 

t Gen. Willsons Survcj- Illinoie River, 1867. 



GEOaRAPHICAL POSITION AND INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS OF THE STATE. 

, Yirginift lies between the parallels of 3G° 30' and 39° 40' of north 
latitude, and CaHfornia is crossed by the same parallels. 

The internal improvements of Virginia consist in railways and 
canals — of 1,371^ miles of the former, and 27G miles of the latter. 
About sixty trillion dollars — estimated — have been expended in 
the construction of these works, all of which, with the other prin- 
cipal Hues that are in contemplation at present, are projected on the 
accompanying map of the State. 

Railroads of Virginia completed, with the Length of the Muin Line; Cost of Con- 
struction and Hquipment ; Bats of Cluirter, and Uie CoMities ihrowjh which thty 
pass.* 



No. 
1. 

2. 

3. 
4. 



Namb 0? Road and ConjrnES, and Datb of Charter. 



Length. 



Cost. 



Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire, March 15, 1853, 
completed to Leesburg ; passes through the counties 
of Alexandria, Fairfax, and Loudoun 

Chesapeake and Ohio (Louisa road), February 18, 1836 ; 
Virginia Central, March 5, 1849 ; Chesapeake and 
Ohio, March 1, 1867, completed to Covington ; passing 
through Henrico, Hanover, Louisa, Orange, Albe- 
marle, Augiista, Rockbridge, Bath, and Alleghany . . . 

Glover HiU, February 5, 1841 ; from the Clover Hill coal 
pits to Osborne's, opposite Dutch Gap, on James 
River, in Chesterfield 

Norfolk and Petersburg, March 17, 1851 ; Norfolk, 
Nansemond, Isle of Wight, Surry, and Prince George, 

Orange, Alexandria, and Manassas ; Orange and .Alex- 
andria, March 27, 1848 ; Omuge, Alexandria, and Ma- 
nassas, February M, 1867 ; Fairfax, Culpepper, Orange, 
Ihrince Wilham, Fauquier, Albemarle, Nekon, Ajn- 
herst and Campbell, Warren and Shenandoah : 

To Lynchburg 

To Mount Jackson 

Petersburg, February 10, 1830 ; Dinwiddle, Sussex and 
Greenesville : 

To Weldon 

To Gaston 

Piedmont, March 27, 1862 ; from the Dan River bridge, 
on the Richmond and Danville Railroad to the North 
Carolina hue (extended to Grceusborough, North 
Carohna,) Pittsylvania 

Richmond and Danville, March 9, 1847 ; ChcKtorfiold. 
Powhatan, Amelia, Nottoway, Prince Edward, Char- 
lotte, Halifax, and Pittsylvania 

Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac, February 25, 
1834 ; Henrico, Hanover, Carohne, Sjiotsylvania, and 
SUifford 



Miles. 

37.5 

204.9 

21 

81 



Dollars. 
1,538,744 

6,090,140 

310,000 
2,353,857 



148.3 
77.7 


7,182.012 
3,322,165 


61 
18 


1,411,762 


6.3 


177,354 


110.5 


■ 4,929,000 


75.5 


2,297,932 



• Prepared from sfcillslica by Col. ThomM IT. E'.lis and from iaformatiou furalshid by Col. i^ Fon- 
Uiac, Proiiidcul Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. 



No. 


Naxi of Road am Couirras, isd Din or CuiRfKH. 


Cost. 


Lkigtv. 


10. 


Richmond and Petersburg, March 14, 183G ; Cheflter- 
fifUL 


Ullcs. 
22.2 
38.3 

80 

123 

204.2 
32 


DoUara. 
1,011,754 


11. 


Richmond and York River, January 31, 1853 ; Henrico, 
New Kent, and King William 


1,055,280 


12. 
13. 


Seaboard and Roanoke, rortHmouth ond Roanoke, 
March 8, 1832 ; Seaboard and Roanoke, February 27, 
ISIG ; Norfolk, Nansemoud and Southampton 

South.side, March 5, 184G ; Prince George DinwidiUc, 
Lunenburg, Nottoway, Prince Edward, Appomattox, 
Campbell, and Amherst 


1,707,787 
3,673,t35 


LL 


Virginia and Tenne.ssoo, March 24, 1848 ; Campbell, 
liodlord, Roanoke, Aloutgomcry, Pulaski, Wythe, 
Smyth, and Washington 


7,190,550 


15. 


Winchester and Potomac, April 8, 1831 ; Frederick, 
Cliurke, and Jeflerson 


906,353 




Total length in miles and cost 






1,371.4 


45,248,331 









Thus it appears that the average cost of railways in Vii'ginia is 
$32,99J: per mile ; whereas the like cost in Maryland, Pennsylvania, 
New York, and the Middle States is about $53,000,* and in England 
$175,000. 

This statement does not include the iUcxandria and "Washington 
Railroad, or the Roanoke Valley Railroad, neither of which ifl at 
present in operation. The latter cost $182,612. Nor docs it include 
the North-"\Vesteru and other railways in West Virginia built before 
the war. The ccst of reconstruction since the close of the war is 
also included in the aggregate cost 



Projected liaSroads, Approximale Length, arid Aulhoriz^ OapUaL {See map.) 



Vo. 



ArrsoxDUTK Ijourra. 



Alexandria, Londonn, and HamptAire ; 9H miles, to be extended 
from Loesbnrg to the Potomac River at or near Paddytown . . . 

Chesnncako and Ohio ; to bo extended 225 miles from donngtou 
to tnc mouth of the Big S;iudy River. To bo completed to the 
White Sulphur Springs by July, 18G9 

Clinch Valloy ; 125 miles from a point on the Chrsapeako and 
Ohio Railroad, near the mouth of tho Greenbrier River, to a 
point on tho Virginia and Kentucky Ri\ilroad. in Scott county. 

Coalfield and Tide- Water ; 23 mile.s from Coalfield, in Chesterfield 
county, to Bermuda Hundreds, on James River 

EoHtem Shore ; 95 miles, from a point on tho Virginia and Mary- 
land bourdary line, on tho Eastern shore of Virginia, to some 
point ou tho Chosapeako Bay, in Northampton county 



CAnriL. 



$1,800,000 

26,600,000 

2,000,000 
500,000 

2,000,000 



• H. V. Poor. 



10 



No. 



Afpboziiiatb Lbngtb. 



Capital. 



10. 



11. 
12. 

13. 



14. 

15. 
1(>. 
17. 



18. 

19. 

'20. 



21. 



22. 



23. 
24. 



Elizabeth River ; 20 miles from Kane's Lamling, on the Elizabeth 
lliver, to a point at or near Bunch Waluutb Landing, on the 
Northwest lliver, leading into Cumtuck Sound 

Fredericksburg and GordonsN-ille, with authority to extend to 
Charlottesville ; total GO miles 

Lynchburg and Danville ; 55 miles 

Norfolk and Great Western ; 380 niilo^ from Norfolk via Dan- 
ville, to some point on the Virginia and Tennessee Ruikoad, 
not east of Glade Springs 

Orange, AlexaucMa, and Manassas ; to be extended 20 miles (?) 
from Mount Jackson, in, Shenandoah county, to Hairisouburg, 
in liockingham county — now nearly completed — increased, . . . 

Potomac ; 45 miles from Fredericksburg to Alexandria 

Potomac and Alexandria ; 8 miles from a point on the Potomac 
River, opposite Georgetown, to Alexandria 

Rappahannock and West Point ; 15 miles from a point opposite 
West Point, on the Mattaponi River to the Rappahannock 
River 

Roanoke Valley ; 30 miles from ClarksviUe, in Mecklenburg 
county to the North CaroUna line 

Richmond and Lynchburg ; 70 miles 

Richmond and Newports News ; 70 miles 

SaltviUe and Coal Mine ; GO miles from Salt\'iUe, in Washington 

.county, through the counties of RusseU and Wise, to some 

suitable jwint on the Kentucky Une 

Shenandoah Valley IGO miles ; from Harper's FeiTy to Salem, 
with several branches* 

Valley ; from Hamsonburg to Salem 111 miles 

Virginia and Cumberland Gap ; 100 miles from Cumberland Gap 
by way of SaltviUe and the Plaster Banks to a point on the 
Virginia and Tennessee Railroad 

Viiginia and Kentucky ; 80 miles from Cumberland Gap to 
Abingdon or Bristol, with a branch of such length as maybe 
necessary to bring out coal fi'om the counties of Wise, Buch- 
anan, and RusseU 

Washington and Laurel ; probiible length not ascertained f from 
Abingdon or Glade Spring, on the Virginia and Tennessee 
Railroad, to a point on the Tennessee lino, on the Laurel 
Mountain 

Winchestet and Strasburg ; 18 miles » 

Wythevillo and North Carolina ; G5 miles, passing through Car- 
roll county to the Vii-giuia State lino .- 



Total authorized capital . 



25,000 

1,460,000 
2,500,000 



10,000,000 



1,000,000 
2,000,000 

1,000,000 



1,000,000 

430,000 
2,000,000 
3,000,000 



1,000,000 

4,000.000 
3,000,000 



2,000,000 



4,000,000 



5,000,000 
COO, 000 

1,500,000 



78,415,000 



CANALS. 

1. Albomarlc and Chesapeake, connecting the Chesapeake Bay 
with Currituck, Albomarlo and Pamlico Sounds, and their tributary 
streams. Length of canal in Virginia, 8| miles ; length in North 
Carolina, 5J miles : total length of canal and river navigation 70 
miles, with only one lock — 220 feet long by 40 wide. 



* ThiH road in not projnctcd on tho tniip. Ito rout:' is noarly tho suqij as the Valley Road. 
f Not on tb'.' map. 



11 

2. Alexandria Canal, 9 miles. 

3. Dismal Swamp, 28.^ miles. 

4. Kempsville, 9 miles. 

5. James River and Kanawha, from tide-water at Richmond to 
the town of Buchanan, 198 miles, with branches from Columbia to 
Stillman's ^lill, on the Rivanna river, 5 miles ; and from Point 
Cabell to Lexington, on the North River, 18 miles ; total cost of 
construction of this canal and its connections $10,436,809. 

In addition to these artificial lines the navigation of several of 
the rivers of the State, to wit : the Rappahannock, Rivanna, 
Roanoke, Slate, Upper Appomattox, Willis' and others, has been 
improved by means of locks and dams, at a considerable expense — 
not to speak of similar improvements in "West Virginia, on the Coal, 
Guyandotte, Great Kanawha, Little Kanawha, and ISIonongahela. 

These lines are, as a glance at the map will make ob^^ous, well put 
in. They connect important points, and are for the most part in- 
tended to bring isolated regions in our own and the neighboring 
States, into commercial connection with the tide-water ports of Vir- 
ginia, and give them practically, all the advantages for trade and 
traffic to which their geographical and natiu-al position entitles 
them. 

THE NORFOLK AND GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD. 

This line is intended to intersect the Virginia and Tennessee Road 
near Bristol, and to shorten the distance thence to Norfolk some 
fifty miles. This road will make tribuUiry to it a largo and fertile 
region in Virginia and North Carolina that is now untapped, and 
which abounds in the most usefid minerals, water-power, and man- 
ufacturing facilities. Its agricultural resources also are great. The 
soil and climates which produce the finest tobacco that is gi-own in 
the State lie along the route of this road. The lands here are very 
fertile, and yield armually to Ceres the most abundant harvests. 



THE LYNCHBURQ AND DANVILLE RAILROAD. 

Tliis work is intended to cross obliquely the same belt of country, 
and to intercept at Lynchburg the great lines of internal improvement 
which arc intended to connect the " heart of the Great West " with the 



12 

tide-water harbors of the Chesapeake. Lynchburg is extensively 
engaged in the manufacture of tobacco, and this road will largely 
increase the supphes for her factories. The tobacco put up there is 
said to derive peculiar virtues from the salubrity of the air alone — 
owing probably to the low dew point and less humid state of its 
atmosphere when compared to that of the tide-water country. 



THE VrRGINIA AND KENTUCKY RAILROAD. ::: 

This road may be considered as a continuance of the Norfolk and 
Great Western, and is intended to i^ass the Cumberland Gap with 
easy grades, and to unite with the Louisville, Harrodsburg, and Vir- 
ginia road ; thus bringing Louisville 300 miles nearer to the sea — 
through the Chesapeake Bay — than she is now by rail through the 
narrows of Sandy Hook. It runs through the extreme south-west 
corner of the State, and is calculated to benefit Kentucky even more 
than Virginia ; yet Virginia, before the war, offered to pay out of 
her oyvn treasury, $1,500,000 toward its construction, provided Ken- 
tucky would lead it on through her borders to the banks of the Ohio 
and Mississippi rivers. Work had already been commenced upon it 
when the war broke out. The State has now no Legislature, and is 
without a voice, and, therefore, has no means of making good any 
of her pledges, or of redeeming any of her promises made in times 
gone by. 

THE LOUDOUN AND HAMPSHIRE ROAD. 

This railway was found by the war in its present uncompleted 
state — as was also the "Roanake Valley Road." The work upon 
both was suspended by the war ; the latter is not now in use.* The 
former is in operation, and the work of completion is about being 
resumed. 

THE VALLEY RAILROAD 

Runs longitudinally through that faitlous "calcareous valley" 
which Volney thought the " garden spot " of America, and called the 
granary of the country, f This part of the State is exceedingly fer- 
tile and abundant in resources. It is a fine grain and grass-growing 



• Report of Board of Public Works, 18GG. 
t Volncy'o View, 1«01. 



13 

country. It produces the finest of wheat, and preference is given to 
the flour from it for the United States Army over that of any other 
part of the Union. It is well watered, thickly inhabited, and profit- 
ably cultivated. Its mountain streams afford ample water-power for 
thousands of factories, and its hills are stored with marbles, iron, 
and other valuable iuinerals. The proposed route for this road, with 
its connections, will be at once appreciated by examining the map of 
the State. 

THE TWO GREAT BOUTES. 

These are the routes which are of such national importance. 
They are represented the one by the Chesapeake and Ohio Rail- 
road and the James River and Kanawha Canal, as far as the Ohio ; 
the other by the James River Canal, as far as Lynchburg — and 
thence by the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad as far as Saltville, 
near Abingdon, Virginia ; and thence down the Holston River, one 
of -the tributaries of the Tennessee, and so on down this river to its 
mouth by one fork, and by its other through the projected Coosa 
Cunal into the Alabama River, and thence down that stream to the 
Gulf of Mexico. They are marked in blue and red on ^lap III. 

The geogi*aphical position and physical relations of Virginia invest 
these routes with vast importance. They will bring in comiection 
with the Chesapeake Bay, 16,000 miles of navigable rivers in the 
Mississippi valley, and 21,000 miles of railroad already in operation 
there, and make Hampton Roads the chief port to foreign markets 
for the mighty stream of commerce that is moved upon them. 

It is necessary, therefore, to treat of these relations in several of 

their most important aspects, and to show at least some of the great 

interests of state to be advanced by the enlargement and completion 

of these works — for without them neither the vast physical resources 

of Virginia nor the real power and gi'catness of the country ever can 

be developed- 

» 

THE COOSA ROUTE. 

The dangers of the Florida Pass, the foreign naval stations which 
overlook it, the want of good harbors on the coasts of Georgia and 
the CaroUuas, make the gateway between the Capes of Vii-giuia a 
" Golden Horn," and the harbors of the Chesapeake the best, mo.st 
convenient, and most central seaports along the entire Atlantic coast 
for all, or portions of all, of the trans-AUoghany States south of 



14 

36° 30 ', as well as for large portions of Georgia and South Carolina, 
of the whole of North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, 
Louisiana and Arkansas, with large districts in Northern Texas and 
Southern Kentucky. 

The route from the southern portion of this region, as an inspec- 
tion of Map III. will make plain, lies along the Alabama River from 
its mouth up to the Coosa, then along the bed of that river xip to a 
point within 25 or 30 miles of Gunter's Landing, on the Tennessee 
River. Across this narrow neck of land it is proposed to construct 
a ship canal to unite with the route from the mouth of the Tennessee 
Rivei" ; and thence, partly by natui-al, partly by improved naviga- 
tion, to Saltville, on the Holston, in Vii'ginia ; thence by double 
track freight railway, along the line of the Virginia and Tennessee 
road, to the James River and Kanawha Canal at Lynchburg, where 
this route falls in with the Virginia water-line from the Ohio and 
Upper Mississippi. This is its present condition. There is along 
this route for a part of the way a single track railway already in oper- 
ation thi'ough the entire length of the State. This road, under three 
several names, leads from Norfolk to Bristol, and extends through 
its .connections (actual and projected) to the Ohio and Missis- 
sippi Rivers. 

There is also steamboat navigation fi-om the mouth of the Ala- 
bama up to Wetumpka. Here the ledge crops out which forms the 
Muscle §hoals of the Tennessee, and there is a portage ; after this 
the Coosa again becomes navigable, and steamboats ply on it up to 
Rome, Ga. 

A company in Alabama has been chartered to make this portage 
navigable for steamboats, which l)eing accompHshed, there will be 
steamboat navigation fi'om the Gulf of Mexico up to within a short 
distance of the Tennessee River. The Coosa Canal will fill in this 
gap, and, without any other improvements except those which the 
General Government now has in hand, will give a direct line of 
inland navigation from the Gulf via Mobile through the Alabama 
into the Tennessee, and then into the Ohio on one hand, and as 
high up as the Boat-yard on the Holston on the other. I am not 
aware that any surveys have been made for a canal across this 
isthmus. But be its topography ever so diiScult, the work is a 
national necessity, and therefore, sooner or later, it must be built. 
The practicability of all the other parts and links in this route has 
been determined by actual examination and survey. 

A corps of United States Engineers is, at the national expense, 
now improving the navigation of the Tennessee River for steamers 



15 

of 750 tons, from its mouth to Chattanooga, at an estimated cost of 
$4,050,940.9.-).* 

The extension of the.se improvements thence to Saltville, in Vir- 
ginia ; the construction thence of a double track freighting-railway 
to the James River Canal at Lynchburg, are the improvements called 
for in this direction. They are required to furni.sh the majority of 
the people in the Gulf States with a cheaper and shorter route in 
peace than any they now have to the Atlantic seaboard, and with a 
safe one in war. 

These links being complete, they will form a composite line of 
railway, river and canal of 875 miles between Hampton Roads and 
the great southera bend of the Tennessee River at Gimter's Landing, 
in Alabama, G99 of which will be by water. 

The Virginia and Tennessee Railroad lies along this route, and 
though but a single track, it is already competing with the Gulf for 
the transportation of cotton from points as far distant as Memphis 
and 8elma, delivering it in Norfolk as cheaply as by existing routes 
it is cai-ried to New York. 



WTiat is thought of this Route and the Navigability of the Ten- 
nessee and its Tributaries by the Engineer Bureau of tJw Army. 

The attention of the Government has been directed to the im- 
provement of this river, fi'om time to time dimng the last 40 years. 

In 1832 Congress voted the State of iUabama 400,000 acres of 
public lands to improve the navigation of the Tennessee with u 
canal round the Muscle Shoals. 

These lands proved insuflficient, and we learn through the official 
reports of sui'veyors to the Engineer Bm*eau in Washington that 
these Shoals remain now as they were then — passable by steamers 
for only " three or foui* weeks in the year," and then exceedingly 
dixngerous.f and this, notwithstanding that for 300 miles thejice up 
to Knoxville there is water enough during 9 months annually for 
Bteamers diawing 3 feet. 

"From Brown's ferry," say these Reports, "a majestic river. 



* See Report on Examinations and Snrvcys of the TenncsRee River miulp to 
Genoral Wcitzel, U. S. Engineer CJorps, by William B. Giiw, Chief Assistant 
Enpineor. 

t Page 2C Gaw's Survey, see Ex. Doc. No. 271, Letter from the Secretary of 
War, transmitting Report of Surveys ou the Tennessee River, made in compli- 
ance with the act of March 2, 18G7. 



16 

broad, deep, and with gentle current at all times, is seen stretching 
for 100 miles above, through a valley abounding in the latent ele- 
ments of prosperity ; a river which, in this distance, is seldom seen 
to bear on its bosom a pellicle of ice, and a country whose climate is 
so genial that wheat is ripe for harvest by the time the green blades 
in the North-western States emerge fi'om the snow. 

" Yet, with this favorable combination of natural resources, the 
valley languishes for want of a cheap transportation to market ; 
and this portion of the river, for piirposes of constant and certain 
navigation, is as sealed as though the river had no outlet to the 
Mississippi valley." 

Indeed steamers of that draft can now go for six months during 
the year as high up as Kingsport or the Boat-yard on the Holston, 
and this river is so gentle in its descents, so fi'ee of dangerous 
rapids, that the people of East Tennessee were formerly supplied 
with salt, brought down in flat-boats from the salt works of Abing- 
don, Virginia, 

Nor is this all, for during " six months in the year," adds this Re- 
port, " boats of two feet draft can ascend above Knoxville 100 miles 
up the Little Tennessee ; 153 up the Clinch ; 75 miles up the Hia- 
wassee ; 125 miles up the French Broad, and 50 miles uj) Powel's 
River." 

In short, the engineer adds : " there are 925 miles of natural nav- 
igation above the Muscle Shoals, with only three weeks jDrecarious 
outlet at Muscle Shoals to the Lower Tennessee and Mississippi val- 
ley, fi"om a region whose drainage into the Tennessee embraces 
15,000 square miles." 

The navigation of these six tributaries can be easily improved, so 
as to make a total length of inland navigation above the Muscle 
Shoals of 1,300 mdes.* 

In the regions thus watered and drained, and shut up from the 
great commercial highways of the country, this Report on the Sui'- 
vey of the Tennessee River goes on to say that there " wheat matures 
six weeks earlier than in the North-western States, and brings the 
highest price iu the New York market. While the North-western 
farmer has a rigorous winter to contend with, which compels him to 
house and feed his stock for six months in the year, stock can graze 
all winter in North Alabama, thus saving the farmer the labor of 
providing for it. The North-western farmer, moreover, has only six 
mouths in the year iu which the weather will permit him to provide 

• Page 27 Report of Gaw's Survey, 1867. 



17 

for his wants in the winter ; while there is hardly a day in the year 
when the North Alabama farmer cannot tiU his gi'ounds. 

" The iidvantaji^es of this section of the country over the North- 
west must have their weight ; and when it is more gcnei'ally known 
that the climate invites the farmer here, which permits the Malaga 
grape, the fig, and pomegranate to flourish in the open air in the 
vicinity of Chattanooga and Huntsvillc — a climate which has neither 
the rigorous winters of the North, nor the feverish summers of the 
extreme South — immigration must be turned to the Teimcssce val- 
ley. Its mild, uniform chmatc, fertile soil, pure air, and abundant 
water, its educational and social advantages, and a liberal policy to 
be pursued by large landholders, are points not to be disregarded 
by those seeking homes. 

" The mineral wealth of the tributaries of the Tennessee River is 
no less than the agricultural resources of its valley. Tliis region is 
fast becoming known to the people of the country as one of the rich- 
est sections in mineral deposits in the United States ; whilst its 
mei-its as an agricultural and stock-growing counti-y are illustrated 
by the fact that from it both armies subsisted for neai'ly two years 
during the late war. 

" The coal deposits of Hamilton and Roan counties, Tennessee, 
arc enormous, and the coal is of excellent quahty ; but that produced 
from the mines of Anderson county has been developed only recent- 
ly, and is transported by rail to Memphis, Atlanta, Augusta, Macon, 
and other cities of the South, where it is pronounced equal to the 
best Pittsbiirg coal for all purposes. 

" The opening of the river would develop the coal trade to an 
immense extent, by enabhng it to be furnished to distant points at 
half its present price, and with it, would stimulate the manufacture 
and exportation of iron, zinc, and copper, of which vast quantities 
are found in this section of the State. 

"Wlieat could be transported to New Orleans for 20 cents per 
bushel and thence to New York, making 32 cents from the Tennes- 
see valley to New York,* whilst freight from Dubuque, Iowa, by rail 
to New York is G8 cents, which the "Westeni farmers are compoUcd 
now to pay. 

"If eventually there should be a connection between the Ten- 
nessee and Coosa Rivers by canal, grain could be transported from 
the valley to ^lobile for 12 cents per bushel, reducing tho distance 

• By openinp; the proposed ronte throogh Virginia, it coold be delivered on 
board ship nt Hampton Roads at 15 cents. 

2 



18 

of water carriage 800 miles, and the freight to New York to 24 
cents. " 

Gaw's report is made to General Weitzel, who is in charge of the 
Tennessee improvements, and in his communication forwarding it 
to the proper Bureau in Washington for transmission to Congress, 
the General endorses his subordinate and says : 

" In addition to the many good reasons given in Gaw's report, for 
making the improvement at this time, and to those which have been 
given by the many able men who have reported on this subject 
during the last 40 years, there occurs to me, that not only would a 
work be done which should have been done years ago, but v.'hich 
woidd have repaid the Government a large interest, but that it would 
be the means of giving a poverty-stricken community an opportuity 
to recover from the disastrous efifects of war, and give employment 
to a large class of deserving people who are said to be out of em- 
ployment. 

"I am perfectly confident that if the distinguished soldiers who 
commanded our armies operating along the line of this river during 
the late war, should be called upon to testify in this matter, that it 
would be found that enough money would have been saved to the 
quartermaster department by an improved river, in one campaign, 
to have trebly paid the expenses of doing the work." 

There is bearing upon the subject in hand, other information con- 
tained in this interesting report which may be found in Ex. Doc. 
No. 271, 40th Congress, second session, April 3, 1868. 

" Besides the above facts, appertaining strictly to the Tennessee 
River and its valley, there are others continental in their character, 
and deserve some consideration in connection with this general de- 
scription of the Tennessee River. 

" At Guntersville the distance between the Tennessee and Coosa 
Rivers at Gadsden is only 45 miles. 

" As the obstructions of the islands below Gadsden, on the Coosa, 
will be surmounted in time, it becomes an interesting question as to 
whether a water connection by canal can be made between the 
Tennessee and Coosa Rivers at Guntersville and Gadsden, thus 
making a direct water communication fi'om the Tennessee valley to 
the Gulf. 

" These interest are not confined to the Tennessee valley, but may 
in time bo made to affect the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, for the impe- 
tus which would be given to commerce and trade in the Tennessee 
valley by this improvement would demand the slack-water improve- 
ment of it;3 tributaries, and then, in time, as the country became 



19 

fully clcvclopcd, would lead to the consummation of a direct con- 
nection by water of the Tennessee valley and the waters of the At- 
lantic and Gulf. 

" Such arc the immediate and distant results, which must attend 
the removal of the obstructions at Muscle Shoals. But as it is, the 
Tennessee River for purposes of commerce is a great national artery 
severed at Muscle Shoals. To restore a healthy circulation to trade, 
and vitality to a great section of the United States, wasting away 
under influences that can be counteracted only by bringing it in con- 
tact with the moving commercial world, is within the easy accompli.sh- 
ment of the engineer, and needs only a careful study of the Ten- 
nessee Eiver and the vast hydrographic system of which it is the 
trunk, to perceive' the insignificance of the time and means required 
for this work, when compared to the gigantic results to bo achieved." 
Pp. 27-8 Gaw's Report. 

As a great national work, both commercial, political and defen- 
sive in its aspects, this fact seems not to have made a lodgment in 
the public mind, viz. : that if this great South-western route were 
completed on the scale and in the manner now suggested, there would 
meet at Gunter's Landing two inland and national water-hnes, as 
useful in peace as in war — one from the Gulf of Mexico, via the 
Alabama and Coosa Rivers, through a steamboat canal of not over 
30 miles long, to the Tennessee. The other through all the western 
tributaries of the Mississippi, above and below the mouth of the 
Ohio, thence up the Tennessee to the junction of the Coosa Canal, 
and so up the Tennessee to the Holston at Saltville, and thence by 
rail and water through Virginia to Hampton Roads. 

This route being opened, both New Orleans and Mobile will have 
a shorter, a cheaper, and a better route to New York, via Norfolk, 
than they now have via the Gulf. 



THE VIRGINU WATER-LINE. 

As between Sandy Hook and Hampton Roads, tlie natural 
position of the Chesapeake Bay makes this hne — as an inspection 
of Map III. will also show — the nearest passway to the sea from all 
the States and Territories of the Upper Missis-sippi, west of Ohio and 
south of Montana. The completion of the James River Canal from 
Riclimond to the Kanawha River, with a capacity as great as tho 
drainage and feeders of tho country will sustain, will make tributary 
to Virginia waters, the whole of the hydrographic basin of the Mis- 



20 

souii as far as tlio Rocky Mountains, and of the Upper Mississippi 
as far as the Falls of St. Anthony. 

This line will open water communication from Fort Benton, 3,100 
miles above the mouth of the Missouri, all the way to the mouth of 
the ChesajDeake B:4j'. All this is river navigation except 400 miles of 
canal. It is marked on the map. 

Thus our water-lino and Coosa route show that the Chesapeake 
Bay is set midway the Atlantic coast, like a funnel in the ocean, 
through which these two lines of improvement will enable all this 
vast extent of country to pour its commerce, and reach the markets 
of Europe cheaper and more safely than it is possible to do by any 
other route. 

The valley States that are chiefly interested in this route are West 
Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Hhnois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, 
Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, etc. 

This line is partly constructed and in operation by rail and canal. 
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad is intended ultimately to reach 
the Ohio River ; it is in operation with a single track from Rich- 
mond to Covington — 205 miles. Thence a section of 20 miles in 
length is under contract to be finished next summer as far as the 
celebrated White Sulphur Springs, the fashionable watering-place for 
the South, and the most charming place of summer resort in the 
whole country. 

This single track has to be extended 200 miles further, in order to 
reach the Ohio River. For the means required to do this, a loan of 
$10,000,000 is now under negotiation, and the whole road from 
Richmond to the Ohio, with all its property and franchises, is 
pledged as a first mortgage to secure lenders. 

This road runs through a country beautiful, fertile, and rich in 
coal and iron, salt and petroleum, and other valuable minerals. 
Though in operation but for half the distance, its receipts are already 
well-nigh suiBcient to meet the interest on the proposed loan. The 
security, therefore, is rightly regarded as most ample, and the com- 
pletion of one track of this long-coveted and much-needed improve- 
ment may be now confidently expected at an early day. 



THE JAMES RIVER AND KANAWHA CANAL. 

The James River and Kanawha Company, the commercial supple- 
ment of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, was incorporated in 
March, 1832, and the canal was commenced in 183G. The water iji 



21 

tho former was to bavo beon a prism 5 feet Ihiclc, 30 feet at the bot- 
tom, and 50 feet on top, with locks 100 by 15 feet in the clear. 

This wator-wiiy has been dn;,' also for nearly half the distance, 
viz. : 107 miles, from Richmond to Buchanan, at the cost of $10,- 
4oG,8G9, leaving 203 miles to bo completed. 



The Country that it iviU make Tributary to Norfolk is represented 

on Map III. 

rORT BENTON. 

Fort Benton is in Montana, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains 
and the head of navigation on the Missouri River. In the St. Louis 
papers of last spring no less than GO steamboats were advertised for 
those regions. They brought back $1G,000,000 in gold. This line 
through Virginia being opened, Fort Benton will be by water 4,G85 
miles from the Chesapeake, but the freight for that distance by 
barge and water will not cost more than it now does by rail from 
Toledo to New York. The distance from Fort Benton, via Virginia 
wat«r-lino and Norfolk, to New York, will bo less than it now is 
either by Lakes or Gulf. 

From Fort Benton to the navigable waters of the Columbia, there 
is a portage of IGO miles. Having overcome this distance the voy- 
ager launches his bark upon the waters of the Columbia, whence 
after crossing two short portages — one of 5 and the other of 15 
miles — and over which railways arc already built — he sails out upon 
the broad Pacific Ocean. 

In 18GG the Oregon Steam Navigation Company had 18 or 20 
first-class steamers on this part of the water route to India, which 
during the four years ending with 18G5 had transported up and 
down the Columbia 60,320 tons of freight, and nearly 100,000 pas- 
sengers. 

Montana is supplied with dry goods and merchandise partly 
through the Columbia and partly through the Mi.s.souri. It is within 
this Territory where the comiuerce of tho East meetn the commerce 
of tho West, with only 20 miles of railway portage in all, as it ascends 
the Columbia River.* 

A railway with its supplemental canal, if they be practicable, 

• Report of Commissioner of General Land OfDce. Abridgment, 1867. p. 60. 



22 

across the portage between the head waters of these two majestic 
streams, would reahzo an idea that was advanced more than one 
hundi-ed years ago by a gentleman of this State, and at a period 
when the Missouri River itself was almost a myth. 

"With a process of reasoning as bold, and an analysis as clear as 
that by which Dr. Galle was first induced to direct his telescope to 
the planet Neptune, this old physical geographer pointed out the 
drainage of these unexplored regions of the New "World, and demon- 
strated, upon the principles of true philosophy, the existence of a 
portage between the waters that flow west into the Pacific Ocean, 
and those that flow east into the Mississippi River. 



The First Idea of a Route across this Country to the Pacific, 

The subjoined extract from a letter written more than one hun- 
dred years ago by the Rev. James Maury, of Louisa County, shows 
an early appreciation of the geogi'aphical advantages possessed by 
Virginia. It was addressed to his London correspondent, and 
treated of the geographical position of the Virginia plantations, and 
the seven years' war which was then raging between the French and 
English for colonial possessions, and which this sagacious writer re- 
garded as a " controversy between two mighty monarchs for the 
empire of the world." The letter, after desci'ibing what we now call 
the " Great West," goes on to say : 

"Though both (Evans' map and pamphlet) bo liable to several 
exceptions, and I believe just ones, yet both are very useful in the 
main, and together give an attentive peruser a clear idea of the value 
of the now contested lauds and waters to either of the two competi- 
tor princes, together with a proof amounting to more than proba- 
bility, that he of the two who shall remain master of Ohio and the 
lakes at the end of the disimte, must, in the course of a few years, 
without an interposal of Providence to prevent it, become sole and 
absolute lord of North America ; to which I will further add, as my 
own private opinion, that the same will one day or other render 
either Hudson's River at New York, or Potomac River in Virginia, 
the grand emporium of all East Indian commodities. Marvel not 
at this, however suprising it may seem ; perhaps, before I have done 
with you, you will believe it to bo not entirely chimera. 

"When it is considered how far the eastern branches of that im- 
mense river (Mississippi) extend eastward, and how near they come 
to the navigable, or rather canoeable parts of the rivers which empty 



23 



themselves into tlic sea that washes our shores to the east, it seema 
highly probable that its western branches reach as far the other way, 
and make as near approaches to rivers emptying themselves into the 
Ocean to the west of us — the Pacific Ocean — across which a short 
and easy communication — short in comparison with the present 
route thither — opens itself to the na^-igator from that shore of the 
continent to the Eastern Indies. ***** 

******** 

"One of the western branches (of the Mississippi), Cox tells us, he 
followed through its various meanders for seven hundred miles 
(which I believe is called Missouri by the natives, or Red River, 
from the color of its waters), and then received intelligence from the 
natives that its head springs interlocked in a neighboring mountain 
with the head springs of another river, to the westward of these 
same mountains, discharging itself into a large lake called Thoyago, 
which poiu's its waters through a large navigable river into a bound- 
less sea, where, they told him, they had seen prodigious large canoes, 
with tree masts, and men almost as fair as himself. * * 

"As there is such short and easy communication by means of 
canoe navigation and some short portages between stream and 
stream, from the Potomac, from Hudson's River, in New York, and 
from the St. Lawrence to tho Ohio — the two latter through the 
lakes — the former (he best and ahorfest — as there also is good naviga- 
tion, not only for canoes and bateaux, but for largo flats, schooners, 
and sloops down the Ohio into the Mississippi, should Cox's account 
be true of the communication of this last river with tho South Sea, 
with only one portage, I leave you to judge of what vast importance 
such a discovery would be to Great Britain, as well as to hor planta- 
tions, which, in that case, as I observed above, must become the 
general mart of the European world — at least for tho rich and costly 
products of the East, and a mart at which chapmen might bo fur- 
nished with all those commodities on much easicT terms than the 
tedious and hazardous and expensive nangation to those countries 
can at present afford. 

" This would supersede the necessity of going any more in quest 
of tho north-east passage, which probably, if ever discovered, will 
also be productive of another discovery, that it lies in too inclement 
a latitude ever to bo useful. 

"Tlie discovery of a communication through this part of tlio con- 
tinent with the South Sea, would not only bo a nursery for our sea- 
men, but it would bo instrumental in saving tho lives of groat num- 
bers of them, under Heaven, the protectors of you and us ; who, 



24 

poor fellows, drop off like rotten sheep by scorbutic disorders con- 
aequeut upon such long voyages* as that to the East Indies. 

"What an cxhaustless fund of wealth would here bo opened, 
superior to Potosi and all other South American mines ! "What an 

extent of region ! What a ! But no more. These are visionary 

excursions into futurity, with which I sometimes used to feast my 
imagination, "f ******** 

He tells further, that three years before, an expedition had been 
secretly organized in his neighborhood to go in search of "that river 
Missouri," and if they found it, they were to follow it up to its 
sources and ascertain if there were any such connection with the 
Pacific. A friend and neighbor of his had been api^oiuted " the chief 
conductor of the whole affaii% and was upon the point of departure 
when a sudden stop was put to the scheme by the breaking out of 
hostihties between this colony, the French and their Indians, which 
rendered the passage through the interjacent nations with whom 
they were tampering too hazardous to be attempted."! 

The requirements of commerce, the necessities of the country, 
and the interests of the North-west especially, have attained such 
proportions, that they now urgently require the enlargement and 
completion of this canal between the " canoeable " waters of the 
Mississippi River and the Chesapeake Bay ; also the construction of 
a double hne of rails across the mountains, from the present termi- 
nus of the canal to the head of navigation on the Kanawha River, 
to serve while the canal is in process of completion, for the tempo- 
rary accommodation of the Western produce which otherwise must 
rot in the granaries, or be wasted there for want of the requisite 
facihtics for getting it to market. 

A glance at Map III. will of itself suggest the great national im- 
portance, both of this road and its accompanying canal, and of the 
railway line with its water-links from Norfolk via Petersburg, 
Lynchburg, and Bristol, thence to Kentucky, Tennessee, and the 
States of the Lower Mississippi valley. 



• At that timo they occupied more than a year. 

t Mcmoira of a IIuf,nionot Family, by Anno Maury, Now York, 1853; pp. 38G-100. 

X See letter dated Louisa Co., Va., Fredericksvillo Parish, 10th January, 175G, 
from the licv. James Maury to his uaclc in London, pp. 380 —100 ilemoirs of a 
Huguenot Family, translated and compiled from the original autobiography of the 
Kov. James Fontaine, by Anno Maury, Now York, 1853. 

Mr. Jeffernon went to school to my grandfather, and it is not improbable that 
the expedition of Lewis and Clarke grew out of the doctrines that ho then 
learned. — M. 



25 

Tho connections (as per map) of these two routes with the navig- 
able waters and the lines of internal improvement in tho South- 
west, tho West, and North-west, show more palpably than words 
can toll how important and commanding to the whole country are 
the advantages aflbrded by the geographical position of Vii-ginia for 
extending the commerce of the West and increasing tho national 
prosperity. 

With this map-picture before the eye of the pohtical economist 
and the statesman, nothing can be said to make more clear the na- 
tional importance of these two lines of improvement, or moi'e strik- 
ing the vast extent of back country that is natui'ally tributary' to 
the tide-water harbors of Virginia. 

The Mississippi valley is the largest river basin but one in the 
world. It is bettor poj^ulated than the Alnazon, and, consequently, 
far more productive. The nearest and best way through the greater 
portion of it leads out to the sea between the Capes of the Chesa- 
peake. 

NATUILVL POSITIONS OF NORFOLK AND NEW YORK. 

Geographically considered, tho harbors of Norfolk or Hampton 
Roads and New York occupy the most important and command in"- 
position on the Atlantic coast of tho United States. They are more 
convenient to the ocean than Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston 
arc, because they are not so far fi'om the sea. 

Depth of water that can he carried out, and distance of tJie sea from 



Hampton Roads, 


distant 15 miles 


depth 


*30 feet. 


New York, 


30 " 


3^ fth. 


23 " 


Boston, 


" 100 " 


3.1 " 


21 " 


Philadelphia, 


" 100 " 


^ " 


23 " 


Baltimore, 


" 160 " 


2| " 


16 " 



Between the three last and the sea there is a tedious bay navi- 
gation, but each of tho first two is situated upon a well-sholtered 
harbor that opens right out upon the sea witli beautifid offings, 
those of Hampton Roads surpassing tho others in all the require- 
ments of navi;^ation both as to facility of ingress and egi'css, cer- 
tainty of land fall, depth of watei', and holding ground. 



* Draft for vessels of any size. 



36 

Commercially, also, those two harbors occupy the most choice 
positions with regartl to the back country — positions which give 
them more natural advantages as the great outlet for oiir trade and 
commerce than those that are offered by any other of our seaport 
towns on the Atlantic ocean. 

These advantages gi'ow not only out of the conveniences they 
possess as havens of the sea, but also out of their geographical 
position upon its shores, their river systems and hydrographical 
connections, as well as their situation with regard to the back coun- 
try that is naturally tributary to each. 

New York has made the most of her geographical position and 
hydrographical relations, and, by availing herself of the advantages 
offered by them, has made herself, according to the prophecy of the 
old physical geogi'apher of Louisa,f the commercial emporium of 
the New World. Her internal improvements have done this for her. 
But they no longer satisfy either the demands of the people, the 
wants of the "West, or the requirements of commerce. 

Norfolk, the superior of New York in all the natural advantages 
of back country, harbor, sea, and commercial situation, has slighted 
internal improvements^ and now as an emporium of trade lags at an 
immeasurable distance behind New York. 

Tlie Chesapeahe — Its Commercial and HydrograpMc advantages. 

The Chesapeake Bay is a " king's chamber " in the bosom of Vir- 
ginia which no belligerent may enter with other than good intent. 
It affords the finest harbors on the coast, and, moreover, they are 
those farthest to the north on the Atlantic side of the continent 
that arc never obstructed by ice. It is Virginia water, for it passes 
through her borders to the sea, and enters it between her own capes. 
Just between these capos, and under their shelter, lie Hampton 
Koads and Lynnhavon Bay — the " Sj)it Head " and the " Downs " 
of America. 

To the south, all the seaport towns as far as the Reefs of Florida 
have their harbors obstructed by bars over which the larger vessels of 
commerce can never pass ; and the extent of back country, naturally 
tributary to them, is, in comparison with that which is tributary to 
the seaport towns of Chesapeake Bay, very small. It does not 
extend beyond the drainage of these rivers. 

The harbors that lie north of the Chesapeake are liable to ob- 

f See Letter of liev. Jumes Maury, Memoirs of a Huguenot Family. 



27 

structions by ice every winter, and tboir approaches are often endan- 
gered by the fogs which prevail in their offings. 

This noble sheet of water, with its spacious harbors, is largo 
enough to accommodate shipping sufficient to aflbrd transportation 
for all the products and merchandise of the West were they a 
thousand-fold more abiindant than they are ; and it is the most 
convenient point on the entire coast for distributing them north and 
south along the Atlantic seaboard, or for sending them to markets 
beyond the sea. 

As for back country considered with regard to extent, fertihty, 
and muterial resources, there is no sheet of water in the world that 
bus such sources of commercial wealth tributary to it as these 
improvements will bring into connection with the Chesapeake 
Bay. 

Bach Country naturoEy Tributary to Norfolk and New York. 

In order to show the back country to the North-west that is 
naluralbj tributary to Norfolk rather than to New York, and how it 
is geographically nearer to the former, the annexed map (III.) has 
been kindly prepared at my request by Lieutenant Waddell, under 
the superintendence of Colonel Williamson, Professor of Engineer- 
ing, Virginia Mihtary Listitute. 

Two pointsf each equidistant from New York and Norfolk, are 
taken — one on the sea-coast of the Atlantic, the other on the Pacific — 
and a hno then drawn through them in such a manner that any 
point along it shall be equidistant between these two cities ; all 
places to the north of it are, therefore, nearer to New York, and to 
the south of it, nearer to Norfolk. 

It will thus be seen that Pittsburg and "VMicoling, Columbus and 
Toledo, with the States of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska, 
and all the country to the south of them, are geographically nearer 
to the Cnpes of Virginia than to Sandy Hook, and that by complet- 
ing the James River Canal, all the country drained by the Missouri 
River would have an east and west water-lino to the sea. 

All this back country that li(,'S west of the Alleghany ^rMintains 
and north of Tennessee is now, but by very devious anil expensive 
routes, commercially tributary' to New York, Philadelphia, or Balti- 
more, rather than to Norfolk. It has been made so by the railways 
and caualii which those cities have constructed from their wharves 
to the great valley and mountain slopes of the West. 

Similar works passing through Virginia into this magnificent back 



country would have a like effect upon her seaport towns, increase 
the prosperity of the West, and greatly promote the general welfare. 

The connection of the Chesapeake with this back country is an 
important subject, and one which bears directly upon the mate- 
rial prosperity of the State, and upon the general welfare ; more- 
over, it is so allied to those vast physical and industrial resources 
which in this Survey wo are seeking to develop, that it ought not in 
a report like this to be passed lightly over. It involves the whole 
question of internal improvement. State and National, at least so far 
as such works, whether lying wholly or only partly within the State, 
bear in their commercial and economical effects iipon the welfare of 
a people or the development of their potential energies. It touches 
commercial interests in China and Japan, as well as in Great Britain, 
France, Holland, and Germany. 

Norfolk, be it remembered, with its deep waters, spacious harbors, 
and free outlet between the Capes of Virginia to the sea, occupies 
geographically what the early discoverers thought would be, and 
what physical geography claims is, the most commanding commercial 
position along the whole Atlantic seaboard of the United States. 

Why, then, may it be asked, have New York, Philadelphia, and 
Baltimore, each in a position less favored by nature, so far surpassed 
Norfolk in their commercial success ? The answer is, because they 
at an early day built railways and canals to connect them with the 
West. 



THE EAPID GROWTH OP THE WEST. 

The rapid growth of the West in population, wealth, and power, 
is due, it is said, chiefly to those improvements — roundabout and 
circuitous in their course, and exacting in their tariffs, as they are. 
The more direct and cheaper routes through Virginia would vastly 
increase that wealth, prosperity, and power, for through her borders 
lie the natural routes for the highways from the West to the sea, and in 
the Chesapeake Bay are situated the seapoj'ts of all the inland States. 

Fairly to show the advantages of these new routes, it is necessary 
to state the usual charges for transportation over existing lines, 
whether by rail or river, lake, sea, or canal. 



39 

FREIGHTS BY KAIL AND WATER. 

By Sea. 

These are over varying, and it is only by taldng the means of 
large aggregates that a general average can be established. To 
arrive at such an average, recourse has been had to a great many 
official documents and other sources of authentic information.* 

These have been consulted for this and other statistical infonna- 
tiou, and by them it appears that fi-eight beyond seas varies accord- 
ing to the length of the voyage, the dangers of navigation, and the 
activity of competition. In voyages beyond the cajies — as to India, 
China, Australia, California, &c. — the usual freight hardly averages 
1 mill per ton per mile. On voyages across the Atlantic, as from 
New York to England, it is averaging 1^ to 2 mills per ton per mUe : — 
Say in tlie Transatlantic carrying trade, in which all flags compete, 
the average is li mill per ton per mUe. But in the coasting trade, 
in which there is no foreign competition, and where navigation is 
more dangerous, rates are more variable, and averages are much 
higher. The rates coastwise for two years, between forty ports 
varying in their distance apart fi-om 100 to 1,200 miles, give 4.8 
mills per ton per mile as the average for the coasting trade. 

• Such ns, "Special Report on Coal," made in I860 through the State Engineer 
to the Senate of New York by S. H. Sweet. Deputy Engineer. 

"Annual Statement of the Trade and Commerce of Chicago," by the Board of 
Trade. 

"The Central Water Line from the Ohio River to the Virginia Capes," by the 
President and Engineer of the James River and Kanawha Canal Company." 

"Annual Report of Chamber of Commerce of Now York." 

Ditto, "Auditor of the CanxU Department, on the Tolls, Trade, and Tonnage of 
New York, 1867." 

" Auditor-General's Reports open Railways and Canals of Pennsylvania, 1867." 

Ditto, "Ohio." 

" Commerce and Navigation of the United States" Barcan of Statistics. 

"Agricultural Report, 1868," by United States Commissioner of Agrictilture. 

•• Maury '.s Sailing Directions." 

"Annual Report of the Philotlelphia Board of Trade for 1868," by A. J. Perkins. 

The Animal Reports of the several Railway Companies of Virginia and other 
States, Ac, &c. 

Memorial to Congress on the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, by the Prairie du Chion 
Convention, November, 1868. 

Reports of General Weitzel, U. 8. A., on the Improvement of the Tennessee 
River ; General Wilson, on the Illinois River ; General Warren, on the Upper Mis- 
sissippi ; A'c, Jcc, &C. 



30 



By River. 

Some authorities are quoting barge freights from St. Louis to New 
Orleans — a distance of 1,250 miles — as low as 10 cents the bushel 
on grain. This gives that mode of transportation a ton mileage of 
2J mills. But as the opening of these routes through Virginia 
would bring in as feeders such a vast extent of river navigation, and 
that I may not overestimate in their favor, the average rate of 
barge transportation in these "Western rivers is assumed to bo 4 mills 
the ton the mile. 

But the increase of business, followed by the life and competition 
which would surely attend the completion of these Virginia routes, 
would bring down these river freights as those on the Erie Canal 
and other great thoroughfares have been reduced. 

There is another reason to prove that wholesome competition will 
bring barge freights on the Western waters down to a smaller figure 
than that herein allowed, viz. : 4 mills per ton per mile. Freights on 
the great lakes vary from 1 mill and four-tenths of a mill per ton 
per mile, to 6| mills ; but the rates for the last six years gives 3 as 
.the ton mile average. Moreover, the lake vessels have, by reason 
of the storms and seas to which they are exposed, to be much more 
stoutly and expensively built than river craft ; also, they have 
but seven months for their year's work. Sm-ely, then, 4 mills per ton 
per mile for freight in river barges is, as it is intended to be, an 
overestimate. 

The opening of the Virginia routes will give a life and activity to 
the business of fetching and cai*rying on the Western rivers that 
have never before been witnessed there ; and it is quite within the 
bounds of probability to anticipate an average charge for river 
fx-cights there ultimately of not more than 2 mills per ton per mile. 
As business has increased, a greater reduction even than this has 
taken place on both the fi-eights and tolls of the Erie Canal. 

Between 1830 and 18G1 the tolls there were reduced from $10 22 
to $1.40 the ton ; but in the ten years beginning with 1857, the aver- 
age for both State tolls and carriers* charges was 11 mills. They 
are now 9.G mills, of which 5 mills may be set down as carriers' 
charges. 

At present the steamboats are charging from 40 to GO cents on 
flour per barrel from St. Louis to New Orleans. The barges take it 
ffjr 5 cents less, which shows that they can afford even at present to 
transport agricultural produce on the Western waters for lesn than 
3 mills '^QT ton per mile. 



31 

By Canal. 

Tlic average freights, including tolls, on thii-teen principal canals 
iu New York and Pennsylvania, including the Eric, and the Chesa- 
peake and Ohio canals among them, and the aggi*egate length of all 
of which is 2,404 miles, varied during the years of 18G1 and 18G4 
from 5 to 3.1 mills per ton per mile, averaging 13£ mills, or 1^ cents. 
This we shall assume as the average rate charged on the Illinuis and 
Michigan Canal. The other canals leading into the lakes from the 
Western waters — as from Portsmouth to Cleveland, fi'om Cincinnati 
to Toledo, and the Wabash Canal, m Indiana — have gone down, and 
" have now practically ceased to bo tliroufjh carriers cither of pro- 
duce or merchandise."* 

These canals, as compared with those that have proved a success, 
were contracted in their dimensions. Being shallow they froze 
readily, and had, on account of the frosts, to crowd all the yearly 
business into six months time. They were too narrow to pass in six 
months tonnage enough to pay for the twelve. Their charges were 
heavy, business inactive, and they have ceased to be considered as 
among the channels of commerce for through fr-eight between the 
Ohio and the lakes. 

These objections do not apply to the Virginia watcr-Hnes, for they 
will be open all the year ; and the James Kiver route should, be- 
cause of its importance to the whole country, have a capacity as 
great as the rain fall and the feeders, natural or artificial, by the way 
can supply. 

NeverthelcBs, and because of its advantageous position, and the 
readiness with which it may bo converted into a ship canal, we shall 
consider the Illinois and Michigan Canal as a commercial thorough- 
fare, and practically as the only available water-way for through 
tarifl' that at present exists between the Mississippi and the great 
lakes, and assume 13.7 mills per ton per mile as the average tariff 
for freight and tolls through it 

Bij Bail. 

The average taritt in 1862 and 1863 on 13 of the principal rail- 
ways in New York, having an aggregate length of 2,003 miles, was 

• P. 14. 5Ianual of Railroada of tho United States, 18G8-69. 

" \l\ the canals constructed iu the Uuitod States, except the Eric, tho Dobware 
"and ILiritan, ond tlio Chesapeake and Delaware, may be considered as commcr- 
"cial failurca."'— II. V. Poon. 



32 



2.86 cents per ton per mile. Ditto of 18 in Pennsj'lvania, with an 
acrfifresrate lenfjtb of 2,GG1.7 miles, and cost of $233,072,545.17, was 

OO OO' ' -Will 

3.7 cents — say general average of raili'oad freight, 3 cents the ton 
the mile. 

The actual cof^t of railway transportation varies with the gi-ades, 
curves, and other conditions of the road. As for grade, the fol- 
lowing tabular statement shows approximately the weight in tons 
that a common locomotive (24 tons) can draw up various inclines, 
from level up to a grade of 120 feet the mile : 

Grade, feet per mile. . . 20 40 60 80 100 120 

Tons 610 307 202 144 112 90 74 

Thus the same engine can haul over a level road nearly 7 times as 
much as she can over one with an ascent of 100 feet in the mile. 

Taking these various conditions into consideration, the actual co?.l 
of hauling freight over railways maj^ be supposed to vary from 5 to 
20 mills, and to average about 16.6. 

By JVagon. 

The cost of wagon transportation is greater in the Mississippi 
valley, where the roads are not generally so good, than it is in the 
seaboard States, where, as a rule, the roads are better. But it may 
be assumed for the Mississippi valley generally at not less than 10* 
cents the ton the mile. 

Summary Statement as to the Average Rate of Freight in MiUs per 
ton 'per mile, by Bail and Water, may therefore be stated thus: 

MillB. 

By sea (long voyage) 1-15 

Coa.stwise 4.8 

River (barges) 4. 

Erie Canal (including tolls) 9-6 

James River and Kanawha Canal (toll-free) 5. 

Canals generally 13.7 

Railways 3 cents. 

These figures are not comprehensive enough to enable us fairly to 
contrast the advantages ofifered by these great through routes with 

• The Government is now paying at the rate of 39.4 cents per ton per mile for 
tranH-Miseissippi wagon tranHportation. — Quartermaster- General. 



33 



the advantages offered by existing routes. This becomes obvious 
the moment attention is called to the fact that produce, in passing 
from tbo navigable waters of the Mississippi by lake and canal to 
New York, is subject to various charges and has to bo handled four 
and much of it six times, viz. : twice for loading and twice for un- 
loading in every case on the lakes, for the reason that canal boata 
cannot navigate them. Consequentiy when a canal boat arrives at 
Chicago it has to be unloaded and its cargo put on board a lake 
vessel, which in turn has on arrival in Buffalo to transfer itji cargo to 
a canal boat. This boat can be towed by a steam tug from .Ubany 
to New York. Thus there are two transhipments on the lakes and 
an additional one for all freight that passes from the Mississippi 
River either by rail or by Michigan Canal to Chicago. On the Vir- 
ginia water-line there ■will be no transhipment, for the same l)arge 
which is loaded at Fort Benton, or at the terminus of tlie Pacific 
Railway, or at any of the landings along the Mississippi and its trib- 
utaries, viiW, because of its construction and the capacity of tho 
canal, be adapted to the navigation of the James River Canal, and will 
dehver its cargo in Hampton Roads without breaking bulk by the way. 
Therefore not to overstate in favor of Virginia, to whom Naturo 
in her geographical prodigality has been so bountiful, let us take iuto 
account but two transhipments by the lake route, though there aro 
frequently tlircc, and allow but 25 cents per ton for each transfer, or 
50 cents in all, including in each case both loading and unloading. 

DISTA2JCES FROil TIIE WEST TO NEW YORK AND TO NORFOLK BY 

V.UUOUS ROUTES. 



GREAT CntCXE OB AIB LINE DISTANCE8 (COMPUTED BY CAPT. BBOOKE, V. M. I.) 



From 



Omahn 

Kansas City. 
St Louis. . . . 

Grafton 

Cairo 

Cincinnati . . . 

Chicago 

Memphis. . . . 
New Orleans 



New York. 


NOS»OI.K. 


Mi!'^ 


MllP«. 


1.149.7 


1.101.3 


1,005.6 


1,008 


878 


775.6 


890.7 


794 


859.7 


719.3 


666 


471.8 


709 


694 


955 


778 


1.1C8 


925 



OT Air Ijxe 

IX FAVijR or 

Soaroix, 



48.4 

87.6 
10-2.4 

96.7 
140.4 

94.2 

15 
177 
243 



• In Philadelphia 75 cents per ton is allowed by the Board of Trade for londiny 
alone. Tho elevators charRo two cents the bushel, 8»iy CO cents tho ton, for tr.ui- 
shipping grain on tho Jlississippi river. 



8 



34 

Thus it appears that Chicago is geographically 15 miles, and New 
Orleans 243 miles, nearer to Norfolk than to New York by air hne ; 
and if we compare the distances by present routes, via sea or lakes, 
to New York, with the distances of the same places via the pro- 
posed routes to the tide-waters of Virginia, we shall see that the 
difference in favor of Norfolk is still more striking. 

Distances by proposed Routes to Norfolk. 

Miles. 

Mouth Ohio to Norfolk 1,358* 

Slobile to Montgomery 176* 

Montgomery to Gunter's Landing IGOa 

Gunter's Landing to Chattanooga 138h 

Chattanooga to Knoxville 104h 

Knoxville to Saltville 185h 

Saltville (by rail) to Lynchburg 176i 

LjTicbburg (by canal) to Richmond 147k 

Richmond (by river) to Norfolk 125f 

Mobile, via Coosa Canal, to Norfolk 1,211 

Distances hetiveen Various Points. 

Miles. 

Mobile, via Gulf, to New York 1,886b 

Mouth of Ohio to New Orleans 1,050* 

New Orleans to S. W. Pass 120a 

S. W. Pass to New York 1,853b 

Mouth of Ohio, via Gulf, to New York 3,023 

]\Iouth of Ohio to Mouth of lUinois River 243* 

Mouth of Illinois to Michigan Canal , . . . . 224h 

Michigan Canal to Chicago 100 c 

Chicago to Buffalo 1,050 a 

Buffalo to Albany 350 e 

Albany to New York 165 e 

Mouth Ohio, via Lakes, to New York 2,132 

Mouth of Ohio to Mouth of Kanawha 743* 

Mouth of Kanawha to Mouth James River Canal 85b 

Mouth of James River Canal to Richmond 400 f 

• Appleton ; a, Map ; b, Bureau Navigation ; c, General Wilson's Railway Map ; 
e, Engineers' StatiKticB of New York ; f, President of the James River and Kana- 
wha Canal ; h, U. S. Engineers (these distances on the Tennessee River, though 
given on the authority of the Engineer Corjjs, do not appear to me to be quito 
right) ; i, Va. and Tenn. R. R. ; k, Canal Company. 



35 



Comparison of Water Routes as to Length. 



nwM 



Fort Benton , 

Onmhft 

Kunsfts City 

Mouth Missouri River 
Mouth IlliDois River. , 

St. Pnul 

St. Louis 

Mouth of Ohio River. 

Memphis 

Louisville 

Niislnille 

Cincinnati 

Wheeling 

Pittsburg 

St. Paul 

St. Louia 

Cincinnftti 

Louisville 

Pittsburg 

'Wheeling 

Nft8h^•ille 

Mouth of the Ohio. . . 
Memphis 

New Orleans 

Mobile 

Montgonierj' 

Hunts\i]le 

Na.shville 



To 

New Yoek 

vu 

Lius. 



To 

NoP.yiJLK VIA 

Jamkm Kiver 



MilPS. 
5,012 
2,712 
2,3f;8 
1.912 
1,889 
2,(137 
1.932 
2,132 
2,3S2 
2,519 
2,397 
2,GG1 
3,043 
3,137 

ru Gcxp. 
4,014 
3,223 
3.552 
3,410 
4.028 
3.934 
3,288 
3,023 
2,798 



1,973» 

1,886 

2.062 

3,433 

3,288 



Miles. 

4,673 

2,373 

2,029 

1,573 

1,596 

2.344 

1,553 

1,353 

1,603 

966 

1,498 

824 

778 

872 



2,344 

1,553 

824 

966 

872 

778 

1,498 

1,353 

1,603 

Via Coosa 
Caxau 

1,475 

1,211 

1.035 

933 



FAVtm cp 

NOUKOUt. 



Milr^. 

339 

339 

339 

339 

293 

293 

379 

779 

779 

1,553 

899 

1,837 

2,265 

2,265 



1,670 
1.670 
2.728 
2,444 
3,156 
3,156 
1,790 
1,670 
1,195 



498 

675 

1.027 

2,500 



To Boston from Montgomery . 



Vu ifomut A!n> 
Ctlf. 
UiUs. 

.. 2,312 .. 



Vu C'VMIA CASAt 
A.VD NoRTOUt. 

Milta. 



1668. 



These tables have been prepared with great care, and on the best 
authorities. The distances thus given show more clearly than 
words can paint, tLte advantages possessed by Virginia in her rare 
geogi-aphical position. They show also the vast importance to com- 
merce and the nation at largo of her two great lines of improvement. 
These figures reveal the fact that as between New York and Norfolk, 



* The clis-tAnces aro in statute miles, 
in nautical milos. 



In tho former edition they wcro expressed 



86 . 

Norfolk is not only tlic nearest Atlantic seaport to the great valley of 
the West, but that these two lines would ojien a shorter and cheaper 
route to New York than either the lakes or the Gulf now afford 
from every place between New Orleans* and St. Paul, and from Fort 
Eenton to Mobile. 

The distance from Norfolk to New York is 279 sea miles. And 
Norfolk, by the proposed routes, will be 293 miles nearer than New 
York is by present routes, to all places on the Mississippi River that 
are situated above the mouth of the Ilhnois River. When wo come 
below that, and get on the Ohio, then the flourishing cities on both 
sides of that river will be from 1,000 to 1,500 miles nearer to New 
York, via Norfolk, than they are either via Gulf or lakes. By the 
Coosa route New Orleans will be 498 miles nearer to New York than 
she now is via Gulf, and Mobile 675, while Montgomery and Hunts- 
ville will be brought, the one 1,000 and the other not less than 
2,500 miles, nearer than they now are. 

No cities on the seaboard have a gi*eater interest than Boston, 
New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, in the early completion of 
these two routes, as a little attention to the foregoing Tables of Dis- 
tances will show. 

The distance of Pittsburg and TMieeling fi'om New York by pres- 
ent water-routes, is greater than the distance from New York to 
England ; and the opening of the Virginia water-line would place 
them commercially as near to Liverpool as by water they now are 
to New York. 

By opening the Virginia water-line, the distance both from Cincin- 
nati and Louisville to the Atlantic would be shortened, and made 
nearer to Norfolk by more than 1,500 miles, than they now are to 
New York by water. And if we measure the present distance of 
these two cities from New York by rail, according to freight, it 
appears that the raih-oad transportation from their wharves to Now 
York, costs as much as would satisfy the freight on 5,000 miles of 
such a water route as the opening of the James River improvement 
would give. In other words, the cost of getting to the Atlantic sea- 



Mlles. 

New Orleans via Gulf to New York, 1,973 

" " Coosa Canal and Norfolk to New York 1,798 



175 

This is the diHtanco according to the United States Engineers, though by the 
map the distance appears to be nearly the same. 



37 

board would, by opening this Virginia water-line, bo so diminished in 
comparison with what it is now by rail to New York, that the farmers 
in largo portions of Ohio and Kentucky could send their grain via 
Norfolk to London at a less cost than the railroads now charge for 
dehvcring it on board ship in New York. 

Taking into consideration the tariffs which farmers especially have 
to pay for sending their produce over long lines of railroad to the 
markets of the Atlantic seaboard — taking also into consideration the 
long and circuitous routes by lake and Gulf, with the dangers and 
interruptions to which these routes are liable, we are brought face 
to face with the startling fact, that our farmers in all those vast and 
fertile regions of which Cincinnati and Louisville, Nashville and 
Huntsville, are the commercial centres, are as far from the grain 
markets of our Atlantic seaboard as are the farmers of California, or 
as their competitors who grow grain in the valley of the Black 
Sea are from England. 

In the valley of that sea lies the gi-anary of Europe ; in the Mis- 
sissippi valley, that of America. London is the great grain market 
of the world, and these Vu-ginia routes woiild enable the farmers, 
especially in the fertile regions that are watered by the Ohio, the 
Tennessee, and the Cumberland, and which are now practically shut 
out from the grain markets of the Atlantic seaboard, successfully to 
compete upon the Corn Exchange of London with the Black Sea 
farmers. These Virginia routes would open a way for them there, 
and give them an advantage over the continental competitors of 
several cents in the bushel. 

Taking Boston as the cotton market for domestic manufacture, 
and Montgomery', Alabama, as the centre of the cottou-gi-owing 
region, this south-western line through Virginia would bring these 
two important points nearer together, through the Chesapeake, than 
they now are by the Gulf, and lessen the distance between them 
some G40 miles, giNTug them a water-way with a portage of only 176 
miles on a double track national railway. Indeed, the table of dis- 
tances (page 35), which has been most carefully prepared from the 
best maps and authorities, shows the fact, that will no doubt be start- 
ling to many, that these Virginia route's will bring all places on the 
Mississippi River above Memphis, and all places on the Missouri and 
its tributaries, nearer to Norfolk than they now are via river and 
Gulf to New York, by more than l.GOO miles; and that they will 
bring all the landings and river towns on the Ohio from 1,700 to 
v{,100 miles nearer to Norfolk by wat<;r than they now are by river 
and Gulf to New York. 



33 



FREIGHT BY PRESENT WATER ROUTES TO NEW YORK, COMPARED WITH 
FREIGHT BY THE PROPOSED ROUTES TO NORFOLK. 

"We Lave seen the saving in distance T\'bich the opening of these 
routes through Virginia will eftoct in transportation between the At- 
lantic seaboard and the markets of Eui'ope on one hand, and the 
IMississippi valley on the other. Let us calculate the gain in dollars 
and cents which the farmers of that valley will, with these routes 
opened, make on every bushel of grain produced by them. 

To do this let it be assumed that the average mile-tonnage along 
these various lines is 4 mills by river, 4.8 mills coastwise and by 
Gulf, 5 mills on the James River Canal (400 miles), and 5 mills on 
the Coosa Canal, 30 miles long. These two canals should, on ac- 
count of their great national importance, be toll-free. Therefore, 
carriers' charges of 5 mills per ton is assumed as the mile freight on 
them. The freight, tolls and carriers' charges through the Ulinois 
and Michigan Canal (100 miles long), is assumed at 1.37 cents as the 
rate for that part of the route ; and 2 cents the mile are allowed on the 
double-track national railway of 176 miles, from Salt^alle to Lynch- 
burg. It will be shown that a tariff of 2 cents the mile on such a 
road, even though it be not national or toll-free, will be ample to 
defray all expenses, and reimburse, in the course of a few years, for 
the cost of construction. 

Tariff hy Different Routes. 

From Chicago via Lake Erie Canal and Hudson River, the distance 
is 1,5G5 miles. According to the statistics furnished from the office 
of the Canal Auditor of New York, the average freight, taking the 
mean of the last six years, was, from 

Chicago to Buffalo, per ton $3 26 

And from Buffalo to New York 5 56 

Michigan Canal, 100m.xl.37 cts 1 37 

Illinois River, 224m.x4 mills 90 

Total, mouth or Illinois River to New York 11 09 

This is exclusive of Lake insurance, the cost of transhipment at 
Chicago from canal boat to lake vessel, and from the latter at Buffalo 
to Erie Canal boat ; for canal boats and barges cannot navigate the 
great lakes. 

Nor does this charge of $11 09 include transhipment, wharfage, 
storage, commission, or any other charges by the way. In Phila- 



delphia, the regular charge allowed by the Board of Trade for load- 
ing a ship, is 75 cents the ton ; and on the Mississippi, 2 cents tho 
bushel, or GO cents tho ton, is the charge for lifting grain by (.lovators. 
All produce that goes via tho Illinois River and Ciiual en route to 
Now York, has to undergo three transhipments. But not to over- 
estimate tho expenses by this roiito, and considering that a small 
proportion only of Westera gi-aiu goes that way, let us allow for 
only two transhipments from the Mississijipi Iiivcr via the lakcfl, 
and 25 cents instead of CG, as the expense of each of the two. Lot 
therefore the total expense of shipping a ton of grain from the Mis- 
sissippi River via Mich. Canal and the lakes to New York be taken as: 

For freight $11 09 

Two transhipments, at 25 cents each 50 

$11 59 

From New Orleans to S. W. Pass, 120m.x4 mills $0-48 

S. W. Pass to New York, l,853m.x-4.8 mills 8 89 

One transhipment GO 

$10 03 

No allowance is made here for insurance, which is from 2 to 2-^ per 
cent., nor for storage and wharfage, and other numerous charges 
which "Western produce seeking an outlet via the Mississippi and the 
Gulf to market has to undergo. Thcso charges, in the aggregate, 
amount to several dollars additionaL 

From Mobile to Boston, 2,130 miles, at 4.8 mills $10 25 

The shipping at Mobile lies down in the Bay, some miles from the 
city ; the expenses here for lighterage, transhipment. Sec, are also 
very heavy. Including all these various items, with insurance, we 
may safely set them down at $2 50 each, both for New Orleans and 
Mobile. Therefore, the charges of all sorts for sending forward 
produce fi*om tlaese two cities, may be set down at not loss than 
$12.50 per ton to New York from New Orleans, and at $12.75 to Bos- 
ton from Mobile. 

To N om— 

Mouth of Kanawha River to Canal, 85 ra., at 4 mills $0 34 

James River Canal to Richmond, 400 m., at 5 rnjils 2 00 

Richmond to Norfolk, (river,) 125 m., at 4 mills 50 

Total from mouth of Kanawha to Norfolk $2 84 

On this route there is no transhipment, insurance or storage. 



40 



From Mobile. 

To Coosa Canal, 30G m., at 4 mills per ton $1 22 

Canal to Tennessee Kiver, 30 m., at 5 mills 15 

Gunter's Landing to Saltville, 427 m., at 4 mills 1 71 

Saltville (rail) to Lyncliburg, 17G m., at 2 cents 3 52 

Lynclibui-g (canal) to Richmond, 147 m.. at 5 mills 73 

Richmond (river) to Norfolk, 125 m., at 4 mills 50 

Two transhipments, at 25 cents each 50 

$8 33 

Norfolk to Boston 3 05 

Transhipment 25 

From Mobile to Boston $11 63 

Saving via Norfolk to Boston 1 12 

Freight from Mouth of Illinois River. 

Via Lakes to New York $11 59 

" James River to Norfolk 6 78 

$4 81 

Four dollars and eighty-one cents is therefore the saving on a ton 
of freight shipped from Grafton and all the Mississippi landings 
above the mouth of the Illinois River. 

From Mouth Missouri River. 

Via Lakes to New York $11 68 

" James River Canal to Norfolk 6 69 



$4 99 



Four dollars and ninety-nine cents is therefore the saving on 
every ton of freight from the Eastern terminus of the Pacific Rail- 
way and from all the landings along the Missouri River. 

From Mouth Ohio River. 

Via Lakes to New York $12 56 

" Vii''ania water-line 5 81 



$6 75 



Six dollars and seventy-five cents, therefore, is the saving which 
the Virginia water-line will effect in the transportation to the Atlan- 



41 

tic seaboard fi'om all places on the Mississippi River below the mouth 
of the Ohio. 

From Mouth of (lie Tennessee. 

Via Lakes to New York $12 75 

" Vii'prinia water-lino to Norfolk 5 G2 



$7 13 



Seven dollars and thirteen cents is the amount per ton by which 
the Virginia water-lino will cheapen transi^ortation £i-om all the 
landings on the Tennessee River. 

From Nashville. 

Via Lakes to New York $13 62 

" Vii'ginia water-lino to Norfolk G 39 

$7 23 

Seven dollars and twenty-three cents the ton is what the farmers 
in the valley of the Cumberland would save by the Virginia route. 

From LouisviUe. 

Via Lakes to New York $14 11 

" Virginia water-line to Norfolk 4 26 

$9 85 
From Cincinnati. 

Via Lakes to New York $14 68 

" Vii-gonia water-lino to Norfolk 3 C9 

$10 99 

From Mouth of Great Kanawha. 

Via Lakes to New York $15 53 

" Virginia water-line to Norfolk 2 84 

$12 09 

The Virginia water-line, tliereforo, would enaV>lo "VMieeling, Pitts- 
burg, and all the shipping ports on the Ohio a!)ovc the mouth of tho 
Great Kanawha, to fetch and carry from tho sea $12.70 the ton 
cheaper than they can by present lake and river routes to New York. 



42 



Via Gulf to Neio York, and Virginia ivaler-lim to Norfolk. 

From Mouth of Ohio to New York $1G 20 

« « Norfolk 5 81 



$10 39 



The Virginia water-line would enable shippers in St. Louis, 
Dubuque, St. Paul, and all the towns both on the Missouri and the 
Upper Mississippi above the mouth of the Ohio, to send forward 
their produce by this route, and deliver it on board ship at Norfolk 
$10.39 cheaper than at New York. 

From all places on the Ohio the charges to Norfolk by the Vir- 
ginia route would be from $10.39 to $10.34 less than they are now 
to New York via Gulf. 

From Memphis the charges to Norfolk would be $8.39 less than 
they now are by Gulf to New York. 

TO NOEPOLK VIA COOSA CAN.VL, SALTVILLE, ETC. 

From Neiu Orleans. 

Via Gulf to New York $12 50 

" Coosa route to Norfolk 9 50 

$3 00 

Three dollars the ton, or 9 cents the bushel, would therefore be 
the saving by this route to Norfolk, over the Gulf route to New 
York, from New Orleans and all places on the Mississippi Kiver. 

From Mobile. 

Via Gulf to New York $11 50 

" Coosa route to Norfolk 8 33 

$3 17 
From Montgomery. 

To New York via Gulf $12 20 

Via Coosa route to Norfolk 7 G3 

U 57 

From UuntsviUe. 

Via Mississippi and Gulf to New York $18 15 

" Coosa route to Norfolk 7 45 

$10 70 



43 



RECAPITULATION. 



Saving in distance and dtMars to he effected via Virginia water-line 
as against the Lake route. 



St, Paul 

Dubuque 

Mouth Dlinois River. . . 

" Missouri River . 
Terminus Pacific R. R. . 

St. Louis 

Mouth Ohio River 

" Tennessee River 

Huntsville 

Mouth of Cumberland . 

Nashville 

Louisville 

Cincinnati 

Mouth Great Kanawha . 

Wheeling 

Pittsburg 

Memphis 



To 
New Yobk, 

VIA 

Lakes. 


To 

Now DUE, 
VIA 

Va. Watzr 

LiKB. 


$14 58 


$9 77 


13 58 


8 77 


11 59 


6 78 


11 C8 


6 69 


11 «8 


9 89 


11 76 


6 61 


12 56 


5 81 


12 75 


5 62 


14 46 


7 33 


12 80 


5 57 


13 62 


6 39 


14 11 


4 26 


14 68 


3 69 


15 53 


2 81 


16 20 


3 51 


16 58 


3 89 


13 56 


6 81 



DiFvrni- 



$4 81 



81 
81 
99 
99 
15 



7 13 

7 13 

7 '23 

7 23 

9 85 

10 99 

12 09 

12 09 

12 09 

6 75 



Fkox 



Huntavillo 

Mouth Cumberland River. 

NaHh\illo 

Louisville , 

Cincinnati , 

Mouth Groat Kanawha . . . 

Wheeling 

I'ittHbur).; 

Memphis 



Npw Orleans. 

Mobile 

Montgomery, 
Huntsville .'. 



To 
Kew York. 


To 
Norfolk, 






GlLF. 


Va. Watkb 
Link. 


ei8 15 


17 45 


16 44 


5 57 


17 26 


39 


17 75 


4 26 


18 32 


3 69 


19 17 


2 84 


19 84 


3 51 


20 22 


3 89 


15 20 


6 81 


Vu 




CooaA 




Ca.yal axd 


12 50 


SAI.TTTLLB. 


9 50 


11 GO 


8 33 


12 20 


7 63 


18 15 


7 45 



DlTTER- 

S.NCB. 



$10 70 
10 S7 
10 87 

13 49 

14 63 
10 33 
10 33 
16 33 

8 39 



3 00 

3 17 

4 57 
10 70 



44 



From 



St Paiil 

Dubuque 

Mouth lUinoi.s River. . . 

" Missonri " . . . 
TenneBsee Pacific R. R . 

St. Louis 

Mouth Ohio River 

" Tennessee River 



To 
Kew York, 

VIA 

Gulf. 



$20 16 

19 16 
17 17 
17 08 

20 28 
17 00 
10 20 
16 39 



To 

NORKOLK, 
VIA 

Va. Water 



$9 77 

8 77 
6 78 
6 69 

9 89 
6 61 
5 81 
5 62 



PlTTEB- 
E.\CS. 



$10 39 

10 39 
10 39 
10 39 
10 39 
10 39 
10 39 
10 77 



This table is very instructive. If it be assumed that 40 cents 
for freight and transhipment alone, in addition to the usual charges 
for commissions, insurance, wharfage, drayage, storage, i&c, is as 
much as Western grain can afford to pay for a sea market, it fol- 
lows that grain, except at famine prices, cannot now go forward to 
the markets of the seaboard from any place in the West where the 
fi-eight named in the table is greater than $13.20 the ton, which is 
40 cents the bushel.* 

By present routes, there are several transhipments, each of which 
involves delay and expense. Whereas by the Virginia route all 
shipments from the West being through, would be exempt from all 
such charges by the way-side. 

At 3 cents the ton the mile, 40 c. the bushel will carry grain only 
440 miles by rail. 

None of the places named are within 440 miles by rail of New 
York. And though a portion of the grain crop does go forward from 
commercial centres as far west as Chicago, it pays more than 40c. a 
bushel. Wlieat often pays a dollar or more. But that shows in a still 
stronger light the necessity of a cheaper route than any now existing. 

Each of the places named in the table is itself the commercial 
emporium of a district of country of greater or less extent, wealth, 
and population. And to the freight lists from these points have to 
be added the expense of fetching and carrying from home. 

The heaviest freight by the Virginia route is from the Eastern 
terminus of the Pacific Railroad at Omaha. It is the most distant 



• The freight given in the table from Dubuque to Now York is $13.58 the ton, or 
41c. the bushel. But the ofBcerH of the U. S. Corps of Engineers, charged -with 
the improvement of Western rivers, state, in their official report, that the actual 
cost of sending grain by existing routes from Dubuque to Eastern markets is 68 c, 
the bushel, or (22.44 the ton, including all charges. 



45 

place in tho tablo, and tho freight thence to Norfolk would bo $9.89 
the ton. This gives 30c. tho bushel, or lie. less than it now has to 
pay to get to New York, via tho Great Lakes. 

Let us thou examine thi.s table, and see what parts of tho West 
are at present cut off from tho grain markets of tho East, and to 
which tho Virginia route would open a way. 

All places on tho Mississippi River, above Dubuque ; all on tho 
Missouri, above Lexington ; all places on tho Ohio, above Evansville, 
with tho entire valley of the Tennessee and tho Cumberland for a 
short distance above tho mouth of these rivers, are now entirely shut 
out from tho grain markets of tho East, or they have to pay very 
dearly to get to them. The people throughout all these regions — and 
there is no finer grain country in the land — havo therefore to con- 
vert their corn into stock, or turn it into pork, before they can get 
it to tho market. All know what an expensive process that is for 
making grain merchantable. 

Tho figures in the table therefore indicate very clearly where tho 
sections of tho country are where the farmers, for the want of this 
untaxed highway through Virginia to the sea, have to put their grain 
on the hoof, or distil it, in order to get it to market. 

Wliai tJie Virc^ima Eoute would save to the Farmers in tlie 
Mississippi Valley. 

Were these routes open, the grain markets in all the river towns 
from St. Paul to New Orleans, from Mobile to the folds of tho 
Rocky Mountains, could deliver their produce in Norfolk at from 7 
to 50 cents tho bushel cheaper than they can now send it to New 
York ; or, taking tho average of tho whole, the opening of Virginia 
routes -would save 22 cents the bushel upon the transportation sea- 
ward, of the pidse, and grain, and all agricultural produce that ia 
grown in that region, — in no inconsiderable portion of Georgia, — in 
tho greater part of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, — of Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois and Minnesota, — in much of Texas, and the whole of 
Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, "West Virginia, Missouri, Iowa, 
Nebra.ska, Kansas and Colorado. 

This saving of 22c. the bushel (call it 20c., or $G.50 the ton) would 
not bo a gain merely upon that portion of tho crop that is sent for- 
ward over the Virginia route. It would enhance just as much tho 
value that remains behind. 

As an illustration, suppose tho expenses of sending tho cotton 
crop to Liverpool were reduced simply to nil. That would not affect 
tho price in Manchester. Spinners would still give the same, and 



46 



the producer would gain the saving in freight, and this he would con- 
tinue to enjoy so long as the demand and supply should maintain 
their present relations. 

This, however, would not be so with grain, and for obvious reasons. 
There the supply and demand are nearly in nquilihrio, and by lessen- 
ing the cost of transj)ortation both producer and consumer would 
be benefited- — Let us suppose equaDy. That is, of the 20 cents 
saved in the transportation, 10 cents would go to the producer, and 
10 cents to the consumer of every bushel of potatoes, apples, peas, 
beans, and dried fruit, that comes from the "West. And this enhance- 
ment of 10 cents would not only apply to the bushels of grain and 
potatoes that are sent to the markets of the Atlantic seaboard, but 
to all that remains at home for sale in local markets, precisely as the 
rise of a penny upon cotton in Liverpool affects the price of cotton 
that remains for home consumx^tion in the cotton States, as well as 
that which goes abroad. 



Grain and Potato Crop of 1866 in Nineteen States* 


State. 


Bushels. 


V.4LUB. 


Virginia 


41,399,733 
18,295,026 
23,228,705 
12,685,867 
7,205.670 
23,062,945 
12,785,522 
55 603,807 
75,631,883 

55,221,611 

221,529,394 

151,851,809 

140,270,881 

52,693,102 

30,779,743 

7,203,858 

84,428,426 

2,940,188 


$36,674,208 
28,617,643 


Georgia 


Alabama • 


35,117,846 


Missouri 


19,766,722 


Louisiana 


8,748,915 


Texas 


23,057,708 


Arkansas 


14,986,611 


Tennessee 


47,819,238 


Kentucky . • ». 


41,453,178 


West Virginia 




Mobile 


37,074,871 


Illinois 


136,824,850 


Indiana ' 


85,021,139 


Ohio. 


95.949,180 


Wisconsin 


55,079.282 


Minnesota .... 


22.388,548 


Kansas 


5,133,664 


Iowa 


53,530,646 


Nebraska 


2,180,213 








1,027,417,500 


8748,824,562 



If 10,000,000 bushels, worth $5,470,000, be allowed for W. V., 
then thf! crop for the current year in these 19 States may, according 
to the decimal ratio of increase, be set down in grain and potatoes 
at not less than 1,100 millions of bushels in quantity, and $800,- 
000,000 in value. 



Kcport of Department of Agriculture, 18G0, pp. 53-00. 



y47 

Let us pauso and consider these figures, with the conclusions to 
which they lend. An enhancement of 10 cents the bushel on all 
that pi-oduce would increase the annual rental of the 41,984,'JIO acres 
of land that yields it, $2.20 the acre, and add $100,000,000 more to 
the value of the crop ; aud so these Virginia improvements, with their 
magic influences, would increase the national wealth far more than 
any treasure that can be dug from the mines of silver and gold that 
are in the " Far West," as rich as they may be. 

This imtaxcd highway from the valley of the Mississippi to the har- 
bors of the Chesapeake Bay, is the real key which we are told the nation 
is foi'ging to open the strong-box that contains the precious metals 
that "are locked up in the sterile mountains of the Far "West."* 

The real treasiu-es of the laud arc not in the Kocky ^Mountains, 
or the mine ; they are in the Mississippi valley and its soil. 

The total product of the precious metals fi'om all the mines of the 
United States for the year ending December 31, 18GG, was $75,000,- 
000,t and it is falling oflf. The crop of cotton alone last j-ear was 
worth thrice that sum, and in the pent-up States of the i!klississippi 
valley there is an annual production of human food exceeding in 
value that of the gold and silver yield more than tenfold, and yet 
the nation suffers it to remain locked up, simply because the farmers 
there have not required Congi-ess to turn the key that nature has 
given to Virginia, and which she freely offers. 

Nor is this all, for " a penny saved is a penny gained." These 
locked up States are the granary of New England, as well as of 
New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. These States have a 
present population of 12 miUions X, "^vho are as deeply interested in 
the cheap commercial highway through Virginia to the West as are 
the 20 miUions, who inhabit the valley and the adjoining States. 
Such highways as those that are now proposed, would not only give 
New England cheaper bread, but better markets ; va.stly increase 
the business of fetcliing and carrj-ing between her workshops and 
the Atlantic seaboard, but diraini.sh also the cost of transportation 
both ways, and lessen it proi)ortionately upon evcr^-thiug as much 
as upon grain. TVc have seen that the farmers of Iowa and other 
trans-Mississippi States have to pay G8c. the bushel to get their 
wheat to the Atlantic seaboard. TJm u 10c. the bushel more than the 
fftrmers of Cali/omia have to pay for sending theirs around Cape Hum 

* Presidential Iiiangtiral Address. 

t ^lincral Kceoxuces of tbo United States, p. 6. 

X Estimated. 



48 

to New York.* Need we any fact more startling than tliis to stir the 
people of the West up to the importance of those highways through 
Virginia to the sea. 

ALL GBEAT OVEELAND ROUTES REQUIRE TRANSPORTATION BOTH 
BY RAIL AND WATER. 

The improvements which connect New York, Philadelphia, and 
Baltimore with the interior, show in their workings and by their 
results what is required for the tide-water cities of the Chesapeake 
Bay and its tributaries. They show, in characters too plain to be 
mistaken, that the wants of the West, the demands of commerce, 
and the welfare of the country require both rail and canal to serve 
the interests involved. 

It is held, and correctly, by the New York engineers, where the 
data are so ample for studying the effect of railways and canals upon 
industrial prosperity, that there is in the internal trade of the 
coimtry a large class of goods which always prefer the rail to the 
water, and that no great line of trade and travel can satisfy the re- 
quirements of the age, or fully meet the demands of commerce, un- 
less it combine transportation both by rail and water lines. 

The New York Central Kailroad and the Erie Canal run side by 
side. Neither would be complete without the other. Each is re- 
quired to do the work that the other cannot perform. Each supple- 
ments the other. 

In Pennsylvania the Reading Railway was built to supplement the 
Schuylkill Canal. There too the Delaware, Lehigh, and Susquehanna 
rivers and canals have railways also running alongside of them. 

The Potomac River has the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, with the 
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to accompany it, and the James River 
has its canals with its accompanying railroads. 

Indeed, from Dunlcith, in the far north-west corner of Illinois, 
there are lines of railway which, under different names, run south 
along with the Mississippi River itself, touching it now and then on 
the way, and terminating both at New Orleans and Mobile. 

The Isthmus of Suez has both its railway and canal. The great 
American Isthmus has already the one, but the country is now 
clamoring for the other also. 

The gi-eat overland i-outes of commerce require, as is thus seen, 
both modes of transportation ; and the time is fast approaching 

• In December last the David Crockett brought a cargo of wheat from San 
Francisco to PLilaclclpbia for 58c. the buBhcl. At the same time the tariff route on 
wheat by rail from Chicago to rhiladelphia was 51c. the bMBhoL—CIUcago Post 



49 

when these {^and Virf^ania thoroughfares between the heart of tho 
country and tho sea, will be second only to the Isthmian routes. 

Therefore while the James River Canal is in process of enlarge- 
ment and completion, great interests, national, State and individual, 
require the construction of another track — a freight track to pass 
produce and merchandise between the present torniinus of tho 
James River Canal and the head of navigation on the Kanawha 
River. 

The Alleghany Mountains forbid a canal to the Mississippi Valley 
from the Delaware Bay, or from any point north of Virginia, and 
because of this, Pennsylvania constructed a railway which had to 
lift over these mountains its traffic with the West, by means of 
stationary power and ten inclined planes. 

In 1854, the Pennsylvania Railway Company first established 
connecting links between opposite sides of the mountains so as to 
avoid those lifts, and in that j-ear the gross receipts of this company 
amounted to $3,512,205. They have continued to swell, and m 18G7, 
they reached $16,340,15G.3G— and $17,233,497.31 in 1808. Capital 
$27,040,702.56.* 

Last year the general average of freight of all sorts over this road 
was one cent and 9 mills per ton per mile, and the net earnings of 
tho road amounted to $5,372,513.43. 

The Company is now advocating a third track, to take tho place 
of a canal, and to serve as a heavy freight line, with cars and engines 
to travel at the rato of not more than six miles an hour. These 
cheap and slow freight trains aro to bo provided with mess and 
sleeping arrangements and with hands sujBficient to run them day 
and night a la canal-boat. Such a road is required across the moun- 
tains of Virtrinia while the canal is bcin;? ducr. 



NO STATES MORE DEEPLY INTERESTED IN THE VIRGINIA WATER 
LINE TILVN KENTUCKY, OHIO, INDLi^A, ILLINOIS, WISCONSIN, 
MINNESOTA, IOWA, AND MISSOURL 

It appears by the statistics already quoted that those States could 
send their grain to Eastern markets by this Hue at from 15c. to 33c. 
cheaper (tho bushel) than they now can via the canals and lakes to 
New York ; indeed much cheaper, as tho following statement cut 



See Annual Report of Pennsylvania Railroad Company, February 10th, 1869. 

4 



50 



from a New York paper just received, as to the expenses of a bushel 
of graiu shipped 200 miles west of Chicago, wiU show : 

CenU. 

Freight by rail to Chicago 20 

Inspection (in and out) ^ 

Storage 2^ 

Commissions 1^ 

Freight to Buffalo 6^ 

Insurance 1^ 

Elevator at Buffalo 2 

Handling { 

Commissions at Buffalo 1^ 

' Freight by Canal to New 13^ 

ExiDense in New York 3 

Total expenses 52^ 

The Productions of these States. 

The estimated crop in grain and potatoes for the current year in 
these tight States is 900 millions of bushels, worth $585,000,000. It 
is to be the yield of 35,000,000 acres. The average value of this 
produce at the place of pi'oduction is, according to the statistician 
of the Government, 65c. the bushel, and the opening of this water- 
line through Virginia would, by the saving of transportation, en- 
hance the value of this crop from $100 to $200 millions, and increase 
the annual rental of these lands from $4 to $8 the acre. 

To get from the Mississippi over into Lake Michigan any of the 
gi-ain from other States that is once floated on that river, costs — ac- 
cording to General Warren, who is charged with the improvement 
of the XJpiier Mississippi — $5 the ton*, Avith a charge of 66c. addi- 
tional for transhipments from river to rail. That is, after this gi'ain 
has paid expenses of getting to the railroad by river, it has to pay 
$5.66 to get to Lake Michigan ; and when there, it still has to pay 
$9.32, exclusive of wharfage, commissions, insurance, and the hke, 
to get to New York. Thus showing, for most parts of these eiglit 
States, a difference between the Lake roxitc and the Virginia line of 
from 21c. to 31c.f the bushel upon these 900,000,000 bushels of grain 
and potatoes. 

• See his financial report to the Engineer Bureau, dated October, 1868. Memo- 
rial of the Canal Convention at Prairie du Chien. 

t The proilncer in all cases docs not get the sole benefits of cheapened trans- 
portation. When the increased supplicH which cheap transportation brings forward 
tend to glut the market, then the consumer shares with the producer in the bene- 
fits. But the people of these States have other products than grain. 



51 

No wonder, therefore, that the cry of the North-west is — as the 
Governor of Iowa has said — for *' cheaper freight." 

At the rate of i luills the ton the mile for barge transportation on 
rivers, the $5.6(3,* which it costs to get Minnesota g7-ain from the 
Mississippi River to Lake Michigan, will carry it to a point on the 
James River and Kanawha Canal, whence $2.G2 wiU place it in 
Hampton Roads ; and the same money that will take a cargo of 
grain from St. Louis up the Mississippi to Fulton, tranship it there, 
and dchver it by rail in CIncago, will carry it by the Virginia water- 
line, and deliver it on board ship in Hampton Roads.f 

The Virginia line is clearly the route for the farmers of these 
States, and Hampton Roads theii' seaport. The grain of these States 
is but a portion of their produce. There is, besides those eight 
States and their produce, a dozen others in the West and South, 
with their cotton, sugar, rice, hemp, tobacco, their grain and root 
crops ; the products of the mine, the pasture, the forest, and the 
factory, ^vith fruits and vegetables in great variety and abundance, 
are to be reached by these improvements. 

• 

The Drawbacks to the Lake Route. 

These consist not only in the seal which the Frost King annuaUy 
sets upon it for 5 months, but in other physical conditions, which 
make the Lake route, mile for mile, more expensive than the Vir- 
ginia water-line promises to be. 

The fleet of vessels that are employed every season on the Great 
Lakes is an immense one. It is estimated at 1800 sail, and the canal 
boats that arc engaged in fetching and carrying for the lake trade 
dui'ing this season arc multitudinous. 

Did it never occur to the A\'cstern farmer and those who use this 



• The Canal Convention at Prairio da Chien, 10th November, sota it clown at 2.9 

mills. Sec their Memorial to Congress. 

t SU Louis to Fnllou, 392 miles x 4 mills $1 57 

Transhipment to railroad GG 

Freight to Chicago 5 00 

«7 25 

St Lonis to James River Canftl, 1.028 miles x 4 mills $t 11 

James River C.mal to Richmond. 400 uulesXS mills 2 00 

Richmond to llompton Roads, 123 milc-sX-l mills 50 

$C, 61 

Difference in favor of Norfolk fO &i 



52 

route, that for every seven days of service rendered by this flotilla, 
they have to pay for twelve ? Such is the fact. The lakes and their 
connecting canals are open to navigation only 7 months out of the 
12, and the earnings by the vessels engaged during this time must 
be not only sufficient to remunerate for seven vy^orking months, but 
sufficient also to pay the expenses of the 5 idle months. 

The expenses of those 5 months are enonnous, interest on the 
dormant capital is but a part of them. The ordinary deterioration 
of vessels in active sea service averages 14 per cent, per annum, and 
a vessel in ordinary — like an uninhabited house — decays much more 
rapidly than it does in use. 

That Western farmers may realize what they have to pay, in con- 
sequence of this annual interruption of lake navigation, — let us ask 
each one to fancy to himself one of his neighbors so situated as to 
be compelled always to pay for 12 days' work, but never to get more 
than 7. Nor does this view present fairly all the inconvenience and 
expense to which the West is subjected on account of this annual 
freezing up of navigation. As all the lake transportation has to be 
done in seven months, the West has to supply nearly double the 
tonnage, and nearly twice the number of vessels and crews for it, 
that it would require if it had a water route open during the whole 
year. 

The number of vessels that are now employed in commerce to and 
fro on lake and canal, is in round numbers not less than 3,000. 
They have to compress in seven months the business of the whole 
year ; and common arithmetic shows that 1750 vessels could fetch 
and carry as much in 12 months as 3,000 do in 7. 

The water route through Virginia is free from all these physical 
obstructions ; the vessels that use it are not vexed by storms nor 
strained by the waves. It is shorter than the lake route, and it is 
annually open 350 days on an average. 

Besides, on it the Western people would not have to support 
12 vessels to do the work of 7, but each would answer for itself, 
and there would be no winter lying up, no idle capital to pay 
for, &c. 

In comparing the cost of freights by the Lake route and the Vir- 
ginia water-line, the advantages of the latter have been under- 
estimated in this report, as will appear obvious to any one after a 
moment's reflection ; e. g. the freight allowed from Chicago to 
Buflalo by lake averages 3.1 mills per ton per mile, while that allow- 
ed on the Virginia route is 4 mills. If lake transportation can be 
done for 3.1 mills per ton i)cr mile, largo transportation on the 



53 

rivers * ought with wholesome competition to be brought to still 
smaller figures. 

Because of boisterous navigation, lake tonnage not only costs more 
to build than river tonnage, but on the lake route 3,000 vessels are 
employed to do the work annuaUy which 1750 could do there in a 
year if there were no interruption by ice. 

As it is now — of that portion of the grain of the West which 
reaches the Atlantic seaboard, only about half of it can take the Lake 
route, simply because the New York canals during the seven months 
of open navigation, can pass no more. 

There are those who, smarting under the necessity of new and 
better outlets for Western i^roduec, are urging the general govern- 
ment to enlarge the Hhnois and Michigan Canal, to improve the Fox 
and Wisconsin rivers, and open a navigable way across the portage 
between them, from the Mississippi to the lakes. 

The improvement of the Illinois River and the enlargement of the 
Michigan Canal, are more important as works for the national do- 
fence than for commercial purposes. The importance of this canal 
as a work of defence was demonstrated in connection with the Navy 
Yard at Memphis, some 25 or 30 years ago. 

The New Y'^ork canals have already more than they can do, and 
there is no use in forcing produce into the Western lakes when there 
is no outlet for it from the Eastern. 

The movements of produce there already show this, for as the po- 
pidation and crops increase in the West, the proportion of the latter 
sent forward by the lakes decreases ; e. g. of the grain shipped 
from the ports of Lake Michigan while the navigation was open, 
there went Eastward by rail : 

t in 18G4 — 4,909,480 bus. or 8^ per cent, of the whole ; 
in 18G5 — 7,150,717 bu^. or 10 per cent, of the whole ; 
in 186G — 15,474,450 bua or 18^ per cent of the whole. 

According to official documents it appears that just about half the 
grain that is now anniially sent to the Eastward from Cliicago can 
bo crowded through the lakes and canals in 7 months. The rest 
goes by rail in winter. What does it pay ? Not lake freight, but 
about three times as much as may be gathered from the following 



* The CoqaI Convention of Prairie da Chien in the Memorial patfi it down at 
2.9 railla 
t Tabic and Memorial of the Canal Convention of Prairie du Chien, 18C8. 



54 

fi^ii'G!?, wliich are derived fi'oai the Annual Report of the Caual 
Auditor to the New York Legislature, for 186G. 

The tons moved one mile in 18G6 on the Erie and Central rail- 
roads amounted to 809,561,319, and the fi-cight to $20,282,943. 
While on the New York canals the one mile tonnage was 1,012,- 
888,034, and the fi-eights $10,1G0,G51. Showing that that quota of the 
Western grain crop, with all the produce and merchandise that goes 
forward in winter, when the lakes are closed, has to pay nearly five 
times as much as in summer for the canal part of the route, and five 
times as much as it pays for the lake part. 

But suppose New York should conclude to open a way by making 
the Erie Canal still wider and deepei*. In that case the West wiU 
still have to pay whatever tolls that State may choose to exact, for 
the right of way to the sea; and the bui'den of maintaining fleets for 
12 months to render service for 7 \n\l still have to be borne by the 
Western farmers. 

The immediate effect of opening an untaxed water-way through 
Virginia would be to revive foreign trade, and to increase the value 
of every farm throughout the whole extent of country that lies south 
of the diWding line between Norfolk and New York. (See Map 

m.) 

The Commerce of tlie Country languislies for the Want of Con- 
venient Outlets from the Mississippi to the Atlantic Ocean. 

It is a remarkable fact that the domestic exports of the United 
States are falling off, while those of France and England are largely 
on the increase. Why is this ? The population of the United States 
increases far more rapidly than theirs. Annually, immense areas 
of new land are subdued and brought under cultivation in the West ; 
whereas there, every foot of groiind is already occupied. 

The true reason of this falling off is to bo found in the circum- 
stance that the political economists of the country have not duly 
considered the gcograiAical position of Virginia, or pondered the 
fact that the West is shut out from the sea. It has no way of send- 
ing its increasing suppUes of agricultural produce to the seaboard ; 
its wheat and corn cannot afford to pay the charges on 1,000 miles 
of railroad. The Erie and the New York canals are already taxed 
to their utmost capacity, and there is no way of sending off any 
increased production. Is it, therefore, any wonder that foi-eign 
commerce languishes, and that officers of the Army should report 
to the Government that gram gi*own 100 miles west of Chicago, 



55 

cannot afford to pay its way to that city and thence to New York, 
even by lake and ciiual ? 

Neitlior can it afford to descend the Mississijipi, meet the 
dangers of the Florida pass and incur the expenses of a voyage 
of upwards of 3,500 miles from its place of production to the 
wharves of New York, when, with a little judicious legislation, it 
might get there by a rail and water route of about one-third that 
distance. 

Until these outlets through Virginia be opened that section of 
the counti"y must continue to suffer with plethora, and the domestic 
exports of the country, and consequently its foreign commerce, to 
languish. 

So prossinpf and urgent have the demands for new, cheaper, and 
better outlets from the West already become, that in the course of 
this Survey it may be well worth while to examine and see if it be 
not practicable to improve the James River itself from Richmond 
to L^TicliVmrg, as the navigation of the Ohio is being imjiroved at 
the Falls of Louisville, so as to make it navigable for steamboats of 
the largest class from Hampton Roads to Lynchburg. The two 
great through routes advocated in this report, one leading up the 
Holston, the other up the Kanawha, and down to the James River, 
will meet at L^mchburg, and tax the capacity, not only of rail and 
canal, as the Eric Canal is now taxed, but of the James River itself 
thence to tide-water. 



The Three Rivals. 

France, England, and the United States are the three great 
maritime powers. They are commercial rivals, and the United 
States lag behind. A few statistics may impress this upon the 
pul)lic mind and suggest a remedy. 

In the seven years ending with June, 1807, Great Britain increased 
the value of her domestic exports $237,000,000, or 30 per cent., and 
France hers $220,000,000, or 43 per cent. ; this country fell off in 
hers $3;),000,0n0, or "over 10 per cent."* 

To what is this falhng off due ? ' Certainly not to the dilapidated 
condition in which the South was left by the war, for though tho 
leatling Southern staples show a falling off of $54, 000,000, according 
to the same statistician, the domestic exports of tho South, 

* Alexander Delm.ar, p. 35, Commerce and Navigntioa, U. S., 1867. 



58 

18G7, amounted to 69 per cent, of the whole country. The official 
figures are : 

Total exports of Southern products for the year 

endmg 30th of June, 18G7 $328,400,757 

Total exports of Northern States $143,201,243 

Total— currency , $471,608,000* 

Moreover, during those seven years there was added to the ex- 
ports of the North an entirely new article of commerce in the shape 
of petroh.'um, the exports of which amounted in 1867 to $17,000,000. 
So but for this accidental source of wealth the domestic exports of 
the country would have fallen off $56,000,000 instead of $39,000,000. 

Dui'ing these seven years the population of the North was vastly 
increased, and the agricultural products of the country increase 
three times as fast as the population. Leaving out rice, cotton, 
sugar, and tobacco as Southern productions, the value of the 
principal agricultural staples of the country was in 1860 $1,336,- 
644,498,t and in 1866 $2,224,878,177,^ so that with an increase of 
$888,233,679, or 67 per cent., in the agi-icultural products from 1860 
to 1866, there was a falling off in the exports of $56,000,000, or 
14 per cent. 

This increase of production took place in the upper Mississippi 
vaUey. Still the States in the lower Mississippi valley, including 
those that border on the Atlantic or the Gulf, with a population of 
7,560,000, exported to the extent of $328,406,757. Of the agi-icultural 
produce of cotton and rice alone, they sent abroad $158,000,000, 
or $21 to the inhabitant — supposing all the cotton and rice to come 
from the Southern States that border on the Gulf or the Atlantic; 
while, if we suppose that all the bread and bread-stuffs that are ex- 
ported come exclusively from the inland States of the Mississippi 
valley, we shall have with a population in these States of 14,660,- 
000 only $31,000,000 against $158,000,000. A most startling fact 
for the pohtical economists of the country, that these pent up States 
with their teeming soil should out of their agricultural abundance 
contribute to the export trade of their country $2.10 per inhabitant, 
while their Southern neighbors, with a soil not more productive, 
should contribute at the rate each person of $21. 



• Commerce and Navigation, 1867, p. 18. 

t Cen8U8. 18G0. 

X Commissioner of Agriculture. 



67 

The striking gco^apbical fact that, with its suggestions, meets us 
hero is, that one gi'oup of States fi-ont on the sea and have con- 
venient access to the markets of the world, while the others are pent 
up, cut off from the sea, and so situated that when the farmer there 
sends one measure of com to market, he has to send two others 
along with it to pay its expenses. 

It may be urged that those States with the cheap and convenient 
highways to the sea produce cotton, while those that are cut off 
from it have corn for their staple. But to make fair comparison, 
suppose the Southern planter had to pay two bales of cotton to get 
one to the seaboard. Brilvd ! why the cry of the Old World is bread, 
bread, and onl}' give these pent up States these internal highways to 
the sea, and the commerce of the country, both foreign and domestic, 
will flourish as it has never done. 

Enable the farmer in the valley of the Ohio to put his grain on 
board ship in Hampton Roads for 10 cents the bushel, and him of 
the Misssissippi for 15, and Western corn will be the cheapest com 
in the food market of England and Western Eiu-ope.* The demand 
there will then be enormous, and commerce vnil revive. 

The sui'cst way to encourage commerce and to increase the 
national revenues is, to give the West cheap highways to the ^a ; 
for, from the lack of them, the whole country is lagging at an 
enormous distance behind her two competitors in the commercial 
race. Their population does not exceed hers, yet her domestic ex- 
ports amount to only one half of those of France, and one-third of 
those of Great Britain. f 

These Virginia routes and not railways to the Rocky Mountains 
are the keys to unlock the strong box that contains the real bounties 
which nature has vouchsafed to this land. 

TFTio gets the Benefit of Cheap Transportation ? 

Tlio nation, commerce, and the world are all enriched by it ; 
but tho.se upon whom it confers most benefits ore the producers 
and consumers whose stuff and merchandise are transported. In 
this case the farmer has the deepest stake of all in the hedge. 

Whether he sells his grain to his factor on the seaboard or to his 
next-door neighbor, ho a.sks the same. It is the price of produce in 

. * It in now being corriod from this country to England as ballast, at Id. sterling 
the bnBhcl. 
t Ck)mmerce and Navigation of tho United States, 18C7, p. 35. 



58 

tbo great commercial centres, less the expense of getting it tliere, 
that regnlates the price at home. 

The Virginia lino is clearly the route for the farmers of these 
States, and Hampton Roads their seaport. The gi'ain is but a por- 
tion of their produce. 

Nor is this all : none of the New England States produce bread- 
stuffs enough for home consumption. New England gi'ows wheat 
enough to last her people, it is said, only six weeks, and the wheat 
crop of New York is all gone at the end of three months.* The 
opening of these Virginia improvements would keep the people there 
bountifully supplied at all ticies ; it would benefit consumer as much 
as producer, and bring Boston, practically for commerce, 100 miles 
nearer than she now is by Sound and Lake and Erie Canal, to the 
gi-eat centres of trade and traffic in the West, and GGi miles nearer 
to Montgomery, the heart of the cotton region, than she now is via 
Alabama Eiver, Gulf and sea, or by any other water route. 



Western Produce has to pay toUs both laays for passing through the 

New York Canals once. 

r 

These States alone, which are blocked out from the markets of 
the world, now by the fi'osts of winter, now by the heavy charges of 
the raih'oad for transportation, and now by the dangers and ex- 
penses of the Florida Pass, produce two-thirds of all the corn that is 
grown in the country. Are the jjroducers of this grain aAvare that 
for the right of way to the sea via New York canals they are re- 
required to pay double ? — That they have to pay nearly twice as 
much toll for passing their stuff eastward, through the Erie Canal, 
as the merchants and manufacturers of the East are required to pay 
for sending their wares through it to the West ? 

The farmers of the West with their bread-stuffs, Hke the planters 
of the South with their cotton, have to pay freight both ways though 
they use only one. 

Here is (in confirmation of the statement that they pay for the 
empty vessels that come and fetch) an extract from the official table 
of tolls and freight exacted on the Erie Canal from 1830 to 18.10 
inclusive. The statement is given in averages for four years at a 
time. 



• P. 28, Memorial to Congress on the Improvement of tho Wisconsin and Fox 
Eivera, 18C8. 



59 



Average Charge on "doirn" F)eight per 
barrel, 216 lbs. from Buffalo to Many. 


From to 


Toll. 
Centa. 


Froiftht. 
CouU. 


Totil. 
Ceuts. 


1830, 1833 
1834, 1837 
1838, 1841 
1842, 1845 
1846, 1849 
1850. 1853 
1854, 1857 
1858, 1861 
1862, 1866 


51 
35 
35 
35 
31 
25 
25 
19 
23 


44 
42 
40 
27 
33 
29 
20 
22 
27 


95 
77 
75 
62 
64 
54 
52 
38 
50 



Average CJiarge on "up" FreigM from 
Albany to Buffalo per 100 lbs. 



1830, 
1834, 
1833, 
1842, 
1846, 
1850, 
1854, 
1858, 
1862, 



1833 
1836 
1841 
1815 
1849 
1853 
1857 
1861 
1866 



Toll. 


FrelRht. 


ContB. 


CcotB. 


49 


45 


33 


57 


33 


45 


33 


26 


24 


15 


19 


11 


15 


10 


6 


6 


6 


7 



Total. 
Cents, 



94 
90 
78 
59 
39 
30 
25 
12 
13 



These fibres are tnimpet-tongiicd again.st the policy of permitting 
a great national highway from the interior to the sea to become a 
monopoly either in the hands of a State or in the power of indi- 
viduals. 

The farmer's produce is obHged to come to market within a cer- 
tain time or rot on his hands ; merchandise is less perishable and 
more valuable, and there are many routes competing for it. The 
gr6at State of New York takes advantage of this. She exacts from 
the farmer for 21G pounds of his stuff (worth only from $3 to $8), 
23 cents for the right of way through her canal ; while she exacts 
from the merchant for the same weight of his merchandise, worth 
perhaps from $500 to $1,000, a toll of only 13 cents ! ! 

Putting the statement into another shape : The farmers of the 
West are requii-ed by the State of New York to pay her 20 or 30 
times as much toll, on the value of what they send to market 
through her canals, as she exacts on the dollar's worth from the 
manufacturers and merchants of the East. 

The completion of this wator-liuo to Norfolk (it should be na- 
tional and untaxed), with a capacity limited only by the water sup- 
ply of the country through which it is to pass, would enhance the 
value of all this produce and mfrohandise while yet in the hands of 
the producer, at the rate of from $4 to $8 the ton ; and tlvis, irre- 
spective of the coffee, tea, sugar, and merchandise, and the products 
of other countries that would flow back to him through the same 
channels, and with an equal gain. 

That " a penny saved is a penny gained," no one understands 
better than the farmer, and no one ai^preciates better than he the 



"^ . 60 

advantages of lessening tlie expenses of going to and returning 
from market. 

The Government, by enormous grants of land and princely loans 
of credit, has encouraged the construction of a railw^ay, now on 
the verge of completion, from the Mississippi valley to the Pacific 
Ocean. If all the articles of domestic export which the United 
States now send to countries bordering on the Pacific were to be 
sent by that road, the total value of them would be only about 
$17,000,000. The value of Western products annually passing 
through the New York canals is upwards of $279,000,000. Last 
year, the through freights between the Atlantic and the West, carried 
by the three great roads, the New York Central, the Erie, and the 
Pennsylvania, amounted in value to 405,299,339,* and the gross rev- 
enues of each of the three roads to nearly as much as those products 
which now go to foreign markets on the shores of the Pacific, are 
worth. Last year, the gross receipts of the Pennsylvania Central 
were but little short of $17,500,000 ; those of the New York Cen- 
tral, $14,000,000 ; those of the Erie, and of the Baltimore and Ohio 
were each, nearly as much. 

To encourage this road to the Pacific, and leave the heart of the 
country shut out from the sea, and cut off from the commercial 
highways of the world, looks as though the inland States of the 
Mississippi valley were slighted off when that woi'k was inaugurated. 

The geographical position of Virginia, and the magnitude of the 
interests involved, are such as to take away from these two routes 
through our State the character of mere State works, and invest 
them with the importance and dignity of great national highways 
and commercial thoroughfares ; for in their construction the people 
of no less than twenty States are as deeply concerned as are our own 
sturdy yeomen. 



Annual Closing of Navigation hy the LaJces, and by the Firginia 

Water Line. 

In the twelve years from 1852 to 1863, the Illinois and Michigan 
Canal froze annually on the 29th of November, and oj^encd on the 
2Gth March — average frost period 118 days ; the earhest freezing 
during the interval being the 21^^ October, and the latest opening 
the 1st of May. 

* Comoiittee on Roads and Canals, House of Bepresentatives. 



61 

How is it with the Virginia route ? On the average for twenty 
years, the James River Canal was closed annually by ice only fifteen 
days. Diu'ing tliis interval, there were ten years in which it was not 
closed at alL* The longest period in any one year was 50 days. 
The Erie Canal is closed regularly for five months. In 18G7-8, it 
was closed imexpectedly early. A vast amount of produce was then 
caught in it, and the loss was hea\'}', so that now, as I am informed 
by one of the large produce houses in New York, the New York 
" bankers and receiving merchants were so badly caught with largo 
amounts advanced last year and frozen in, that they have resolved 
to make no advances on shipments leaving Buffalo after the 5th of 
November ; some after the 1st." 

To leave Buffalo by the Ist November, the Western farmer mast 
have his grain in Chicago not later than 20th of October. So hero 
is another drawback to that route, almost as bad as the frost. 

The water-line through Virginia will be subject to no such draw- 
backs, while it offers to the Western farmer other great chmatic ad- 
vantages in the simple fact that rivers and canals are sheltered, and 
navigation by them is free from the storms and quicksands that vex 
it by sea and lake ; therefore, insurance as well as freights, will nile 
low by the Virginia route. 

The Effect vpon Lake Transportation of Equinoctial Gales and 
Winter Storms. 

When the lakes are open to navigation, there are, at certain 
seasons of the year, obstacles interposed by the weather to cheap 
tran.sportation there, which cannot be removed, and on account of 
which the people who send their grain, breadstuffs, provisions and 
produce via Chicago to the East, pay an extra charge of GO cents 
on every barrel of flour, and 12 cents on every bushel of grain, that 
is sent forward after the middle of September, and until the opening 
of navigation in the spring. 

After the middle of September, and annually about the time of 
the equinoctial storms, the navigation of the lakes becomes bois- 
terous, and so remains until late in November, when the frost-king 
sots his seal upon them and closes them up, generally till April, and 
sometimes tiU May. 

The statistics of the Lake Boards of Trade show that, with tho 

* Lorraine — Engineer, James Eivor ConaL 



63 

commencement of boisterous navigation, there is a rise in freight, 
both by lake and rail, on all produce going forward from Chicago to 
Buffalo, New York and Boston ; that this equinoctial rise is from 50 
to 90 per cent, upon all grain, breadstuffs, and provisions seeking 
transportation at that season ; and that these high rates last from 
the autumnal equinox luitil the opening of ua\'igation in the spring. 
According to the tariff of railroad freights published by the Chi- 
cago Board of Trade, the freight to New York was, on flour, in — 

1866. 1867. 

April and May $1.10 a $1.40 per bbL $1.00 a $1.10 

October and February 1.60 a 2.10 1.70 

Fourth-class articles, April and May 55 a .70 .50 a .55 

October to February 70 a 1.05 .85 

PAETLY BY LAKE AND PARTLY BY KAIL — FIOUT. 

1866. 1867. 

May 75 a .80 per bbL .65 a .70 

Middle of September to November $1.10 a $1.90 $1.30 a $1.35 

Provisions per 100 pounds. 

1866. 1867. 

May 40 a .45 .32^0 .38 

Middle of September to November 75 o .95 .62^ a .67^ 

* 

Thus it aj)pears that in fall, winter, and early spring — the very time 
the crops are coming forward, and when the farmers stand most in 
need of cheap transportation — then, that is the time when the lake 
route is of the least value. At this season — whether they use lake 
or rail, or whether the lakes be blocked" with ice or vexed by storms, 
they have to pay from 50 cents to $1 more on every barrel of flour, 
and from $3 to $3.50 more on every 1,000 pounds of provisions, that 
they send to the seaboard, than they do in midsummer, when their 
water-line is clear. 

During the two and a-half months of autumnal storms on the 
lakes, those farmers have also to pay more, by 50 per cent., ex- 
clusive of insurance, than they do when the lakes are unvexed. This 
annual period of high freight commences in September and ends in 
April. 

In autumn, the bulk of the crop is gathered ; then, and in win- 
ter, is the time for sending it to market. But this is the time of all 
others when wind and weather conspire to make transportation fi'om 
the West, by lake and rail, most expensive. 



63 



TOLLS WHICH THE F/VRllERS OF THE WEST HAVE TO PAY FOR THEIR 
PIlEyENl' lilGHT OF WAY TO THE ATLANTIC SEABO^UID. 

Tlio people of Ohio uud the North-west have, kiucc the Erie Canal 
was first opeueJ, as it appears by the official rotiu-ns to the Legisla- 
ture of New York,* paid to that State, for the right of way through 
it to the sea, not less than fifty millions dollars. This does not in- 
clude fi-cight cither by rail or canal, but only tolls to the State. 

Nor does it include the tolls that they have paid to the same State, 
for the use of the Oswego and other canals, nor to the English for 
the use of their Canadian canals, nor to the lake underwriters, nor 
for losses in the dangerous navigation of the St Clair flats and of 
Lake Erie, which losses are set down in the report of General 
Wilson, U. S. A., at $1,000,000 annuaUy.f 

Formerly, Denmark exacted tolls at the mouth of the Baltic from 
vessels passing that way. To get rid of these "sound dues," 
as they were called, the Government of the United States com- 
pounded with the King of Denmark, and paid him a large sum to 
let our vessels pass loll free. Cannot the Government do as much 
for the farmers of the West at home, as it did abroad for the mer- 
chants of the East? 

Before the State of New York undertook the Erie Canal, she gen- 
erously oJBfered it with the right of way to Congress. Congress 
refused it then, and it is now a sybilline leaf. In like manner, Vir- 
ginia ofiers the right of way now through her borders, and if it Ije 
riifused, the Western farmers may, when it is too late, discover that 
they too will have let escape the golden moment. If not soon un- 
dertaken at the public expense, these works have now bocorao 
obviously too important and inviting much longer to escape the at- 
tention of capitalists. 

How much the people of Tennessee, Alabama, and other South- 
wpstom States have hoen paying on account of the dangers of the 
I'lorichx Keys and Bahama Banks, which these Virginia routes would 
have saved them, I have no means of ascertaining. But the losses 
entailed by wreck and disaster, and the sums paid for insurance on 
account of the dangers of that Pass, do not, from first to last, fall 
short of $100,000,000. Nay, it may be more; for it has already been 



• .\nnaal Report on the Tolls, Trade and Tonnage of the Canola of New York, 
18(17. 
t ^ice his Report on the Survey of the Illinois River, 18G7. Ex. Doc. No. 16. 



C4 

made to appear, that notwithstanding the perfection of charts, the 
erection of light-houses, the knowledge acquired concerning the 
winds and currents of the sea, etc., insurance on voyages using that 
Pass still ranges as high as 2^ per cent, upon tho value of ship and 
cargo. 

Tivo and a half per cent, upon the value of all the commerce that 
has sought a passage that way from New Orleans and Mobile since 
the purchase of Louisiana, surely amounts to more than $100,000,000, 
and the use of these Virginia routes would have saved much, if not 
all of it. As an evidence of the dangers of this Pass, it may be men- 
tioned that wrecking is the chief business of Key West. There, it 
is a regular occupation, and there the United States have established 
a court of admiralty, especially for the adjudication of salvage. 



THE DANGERS OF THE FLORIDA PASS. 

These are what, in navigation, are called hidden dangers. They 
lurk there in the shape of insidious currents, simken rocks, reefs 
and shoals. There is nothing on the surface to mark their existence. 
The water looks open and the way all clear, but an error in the 
reckoning of a minute, or even less, is often fatal to the ship and 
cargo, if not to the crew. 

To sailing vessels the calms that prevail there at certain seasons 
increase the danger, for in them vessels are often silently swept by 
the currents and stranded, with total loss. 

Added to these are the storms and hurricanes. They, alternating 
with the most vexatious calms, rage from the middle of July till the 
middle of March. During these eight months the dangers increase 
and the rates of insurance go up, for the dangers to a vessel are 
greatly aggravated when she is overtaken by storms in this crooked 
and narrow passage-way. Scenes, the .most awfully grand and 
sublime that are known at sea, sometimes take place in the hun*i- 
canes and tornadoes that prevail here ; in them the waters are piled 
up ; tho Gulf stream is turned back or forced over reefs into new 
channels with a violence that no skill can countervail — no ship with- 
stand. 

Among the annals of that navigation, nautical records tell of the 
Ledbury,* an English vessel, which was caught in one of these hur- 
ricanes. The waters of the Gulf stream were backed up and piled 

• See Physical Geography of tho Sea. 



05 

to an enormous height. The scene of roaring Avavcs and furious 
currents beggared description. She let go her anchors, thinking 
she had found smooth water and a place of safety, l)ut when the gale 
abated and the sea retired she found herself high and dry and her 
cables and anchors entangled among the tree-tops on EUiot's Key.* 

So it appears that both the route by the lakes and the route by 
the Gulf are impracticable in war ; and in peace are sorely beset 
both by wind and weather at the very time of the year when the far- 
mers most need them. 

To avoid such dangers, cotton is now shipped from Montgomery, 
382 miles by rail, to Savannah, andi. thence by sea to New York, at 
$7.50 per bale of 500 lbs., say, $30 per ton of 2,000 lbs. Mobile 
shippers avoid these rates and shun this Pass by fetching their cot- 
ton from Montgomery by river, transhipping it and forwarding it 
thence to Cedar Keys by sea. Here it is transhipped again and 
sent IGO miles by rail to Fernandina, to undergo another tranship- 
ment, and be forwarded thence to New York by steamer, all for $6 
per bale. 

But it costs one per cent., say $1.25 a bale additional, to insure by 
this route, making a total charge of $28 per ton by weight for this 
light and bulky article. 

Notwithstanding all these transhipments, forwarders find it 
cheaper and better to send by this route than to encounter the dan- 
gers of the Florida Pass and the high risks tliat way.f 

This Coosa route, completed through Virginia, would enable the 
Montgomery shipper to send his cotton by the Coosa, Tennes-see 
and Virginia line with a saving of over 500 miles in distance. 



CHEATER ROUTES REQUIRED. 

Cheaper and better routes between the Mississippi valley and the 
Atlantic seaboard than any that are now opened by rail or water is 
a crying necessity. The merchants of tlio East arc calling for them, 
and the people of the "West demand them. All insist upon canals, 
for the fact is patent that railway transi^ortation, even though it 



• Manry's SailinR Directions. 

t By a New York freight bill of October last, the freights thence to LiTerpool 
are quotod on cotton as at from J to 1 cent, on flour 60 centfl, wheat 14 centa, 
heavy goods $G.'2t®$S.75. By sailing vessels the charges wore Rl>oat one-sixth 
les& But by steamers the average freight on brcodstuSk is about (o the ton. 

6 



66 

could be reduced to one-half its present rates, could never satisfy 
the commercial demands of the West. Its chief industry is essen- 
tially agricultural. Agi'icultural products are raw and bulky, and 
no mode of conveyance but water can profitably fetch them to the 
Atlantic seaboard. 

Wherefore, better and larger canals to and from the Great Lates 
are insisted upon. The people in the Upper Mississippi valley are 
calling for canals leading into the Western lakes ; the people of the 
Atlantic seaboard for canals leading from the Eastern lakes. Some 
say, enlarge the Erie Canal, and adapt it to boats of 600 tons ; 
others say, let us dig a ship canai around the Falls of Niagara, and 
enlarge the Canadian canals so as to pass larger ships between the 
lakes and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. At any rate, they say, give us 
a ship canal adequate to pass vessels of a thousand tons burden 
between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean.* 

But the Great Lakes are closed at the very season when the far- 
mers of the West most need transportation. Moreover, they lie 
beyond our own borders, and, in war, would be impassable. 

The only canal that can answer the purposes of the call, must lie 
wholly within onr own borders. — The only channel it can take is such 
as the physical geography of the country will allow. — The only chan- 
nel that it should take is such that winter climates wiU not seriously 
obstruct. With one terminus in the heart of the Mississippi valley 
and the other midway the Atlantic sea-coast, it should afford, be- 
tween the best harbor on that coast and the eastern terminus of the 
Pacific Railway, the cheapest line in peace and the safest in war 
that can be had. It should be central in situation, so as to afford 
the gi'eatest amount of convenience to the greatest number of States, 
to the nation and people. Such are the requirements. 

The phj'sical geography and climates of Virginia admit of a route 
which, better than aU others, satisfies these requirements and fulfils 
these conditions. 



EXISTING AND PROPOSED EOUTES COMPARED. 

The routes, both by lake and Gulf, lie beyond oiu- own borders. 
They connect the granary of the country with its capital, the sources 
of supply with its arsenals and the commercial marts of the Atlantic 
Ocean ; and what great nation was ever known to allow its chief 

* Commercial Couvention of Boston. 



67 

highway of commerce between its granaries and its capitals and l)e- 
tween its citadels and its magazines, to pass beyond its own borders, 
to depend for safety upon the forbearance of foreign powers, when 
by the expenditure of a sum quite within its means, a shortei-, better, 
cheaper and perfectly safe way may be opened entii-ely within its 
own borders ? 

These domestic routes lie along the diameter, and the trans-ter- 
ritorial routes, along the circumference of a circle, e. g. : — From St. 
Louis, via lakes to New York, the distance is 1,U32 miles. Via Gul^ 
3,223 miles. Via Vii'ginia water-Hne to Norfolk, 1,553 miles. From 
Montgomery, Ala., to New York \da Gulf, 2,0G2 miles. From Mont- 
gomery, Ala., via Coosa Canal to Noi-folk, the distance is 1,035 
miles. 

CANADIAN YIEWS. 

Our neighbors in Canada, perceiving how inadequate for the "West 
are the New York routes by rail, lake and canal, to the sea, have, at 
great labor and expense, constructed ship canals around the difficult 
passes between the lakes and the Atlantic, with the view of diverting 
the "Western trade from Sandy Hook, and bringing it out to sea 
through the St. Lawrence River and Gidf. These canals admit a 
draft, some of nine and some of ton feet. But they do not pay ; 
they do not get the trade — and engineers are now preparing esti- 
mates for extending and enlarging them so as to pass ships drawing 
15 feet. 

To deepen these canals and gain this trade is, say the Canadians, 
" the poHcy for us to pursue — if we fail to follow it, we neglect every 
advantage, geographical and commercial, which we possess."* 

So that here are a foreign people proposing to go to the expense 
of canals Jifteen feet deep to get this trade merely to pass through 
their borders, whereas with a little slack water, with canals G or 7 
feet deep and a short link of iron, it is all our own. 

Mr. Kingsford, their engineer, depicts in vivid colors the value 
and importance of our "U'cstern trade, and a few extracts from his 
"Canadian Canals" are hero introduced, partly for the purpose of 
showing the absolute necessity that there is for other and cheaper 
and better outlets from the "West, than present routes aflford, and 
partly for the purpose of disabusing the mind of the Western people, 

• W. Kinsgford, C. E. 



68 

and cxi^laiBuig liow, from insuperable obstacles placed by nature in 
the way, man never can convert the St, Lawrence into such a high- 
way to the sea as their section of the country requires. 

" The commerce of the North-west," he truly says, " is not any 
fanciful speculation, nor is its magnitude in any way questionable. 
It is a reality, as inquiry will estabhsh. It has outgrown the Erie 
Canal, and the complaint of the West is that the quantity carried is 
so immense, that carrier's can command their own terms. The con- 
dition of the producers of the West has been described without 
exaggeration, as that of men shut out from the markets of the world, 
oijprcssed by the excessive production of their own toil, which 
remains wasting and worthless upon their hands, depriving labor of 
half its reward, discoui*.aging industry, and paralyzing enter- 
prise." * * * 

" In many localities the produce is even without value, for it is 
without a market. It is estimated that five hundred miUion bushels 
of Indian corn or maize are raised in the North-west ; but not five 
per cent, of this amount finds its way to the seaboard, owing to the 
expense of getting it there ; and that out of the sixty cents paid in 
New England for a bushel of corn, only nine cents goes to the pro- 
ducer ; the remainder being expended in fi-eights and commission. 
It is this sense of inferiority of position which has hitherto led to 
great discontent in the West." * * * * 

"This sui'plusage of grain accounts for the extended pork trade. 
The hog is, indeed, regarded as corn in a concentrated (but ex- 
pensive) form." * * * * 

"The State of Illinois has officially represented the condition of 
the Western States ydi\\ great force." * * * * 

" "yiMiat it asks is a direct trade between the North-western States 
and Liverpool, on the plea ' that the increasing volume of business 
cannot be maintained without recourse to the natui'al outlet of the 
lakes.' If this opportunity be vouchsafed, and the requisite facilities 
be given, the surplus produce will be increased with a rapidity even 
beyond tfiat of the past century. It is estimated that from the State 
of Illinois alono, there has been shipped annually, for the last ten 
years, a surplus of food sufficient to feed ten inillions of people, and 
at the same time, there has been a positive waste from the inabiUty 
to bring the crops profitably to market."* 

Hero, then, is the State of Illinois speaking in behalf of the AVcs^, 
and advocating the improvement of the navigation of Niagara and 

• Kingsford. 



69 

the St. Lawrence River with ship canals, at an immense cost, for the 
sake of six mouths' difficult and dangerous navigation trade with 
Livcri)ool. 



PHYSICAL OBJECTIONS TO THE ST. LAWRENCE ROUTE AS THE NATIONAL 
HIGHWAY FROM THE WEST TO THE ATLANTIC. 

This route is not within the limits of the United States, and is, 
therefore, not within their control. IMoreover, and as for trade with 
Livei-pool, were there a strait between the Falls of Niagara and the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence, as wide, as deep, and as free as the Straits of 
Gibraltar, the fi'osts of winter, the icebergs, and the fogs of summer, 
would make the Gulf of St. Lawrence the most inconvenient place 
for distributing by sea the produce of the "West that could well be 
selected. It would be available, at best, for only a little more than 
one-half of the year. For all the Trans-Mississippi States, and for 
the greater part of the other Valley States, the Virginia water-line 
would be a better outlet ; for the distance by it and the sea is not 
only less, but the terminus of the line is more central, and the 
route is available for 11^ months annually, instead of for only 180 
days.* 

Listead of being midway the coast, as the Chesapeake Bay is, it is 
beyond our own borders; its shores are most inhospitable; they are 
at the extreme verge of coast navigation. An outlet through the 
Gulf of St. Lawi-ence would be of no avail to Western commerce in 
time of war. 

But the physical difficulties in the way of the St. Lawrence route 
to Liverpool do not end with the frost or the winter. Tlie advocates 
of this route point to the Straits of Bello Isle, and toll how many 
hundred miles the voyage through it from Chicago to England would 
be shortened. 

But the way to and fro by these straits, between the opposite 
shores of the Atbintic, leads not only through storms in winter, but 
through fogs and calms, and on a sea beset with icebergs at other 
sea.sons. 

The North Atlantic Ocean is the most tempestuous sea in the 
world. Cape Horn is nothing to it. The approaches to the mouth 
of the St. Lawrence lie through the most stormy part of this tempes- 
tuous ocean. "When not vexed by gales in winter, this part of it 



* Canadian Engineers. 



70 

especially, is in summer beset by calms, fogs and ice — flow and 
drift — and by icebergs. 

This route is, therefore, obstructed by the physical geography of 
the sea, as well as of the land, and in this fact hes the secret of the 
failure of the Canadian canals to get the trade of the West, notwith- 
standing their great depth and capacity. The people there, want, 
and must have a route to the sea that is never closed a single month 
by the weather, much less one that is tight-frozen regularly for six 
months every year, and rendered almost impassable at other times 
by the dangers of the sea. 

Storms, fogs, and drifting ice present difficulties that are insuper- 
able. To this route, as the commercial highway for the West, they 
are fatal ; so much so, that were the Canadian canals enlarged to the 
size of the Caledonian, their completion would, like the discovery of 
the North-west passage, be followed by another discovery, viz. : that 
practically such a channel would be of but little use to Western 
commerce. 

The cHmates of Virginia and the offings of the Chesapeake are 
strikingly in contrast with those of Canada and the St. Lawrence, 
and are as inviting as the merchant and mariner would have them. 

There is also another advantage in the outlet through Virginia 
and the Chesapeake, which the war has in the most striking man- 
ner shown it to possess : the average freights, coastwise from New 
York, in consequence of the fear even of one or two Confederate 
cruisers, in 18G4, was 250 per cent, higher than they were in 1861, 
when there were no Alabamas afloat. 

Now, let the harbors of the Chesapeake be made the entrepot for 
this Western produce : it might in war be distributed thence 
coastwise by inland water-lines, leading north and south through 
the sounds, rivers and canals, which stretch along the seaboard, and 
thence inland for a navigable river distance of G,GOO* miles, in the 
aggregi-ate, unaffected by war rates, exempt from sea risks, and no 
more liable to interruption at one time than another. 



VALUE OF CERTAIN STAPLE CROPS. 

There are (pages 53-GO Report, 186G, Agricultural Department 
United States) some statistics which put the necessity for these 
routes in a stronger light than I have ventured to do. These sta- 

* Uuited Stales Census. 



71 

tistics aro arranged in tables to show the amount in bushels {ind 
cwt., of coi-tain principal crops of the several States named, the 
yield per acre, the total average, the average price in each State, 
and the value of each crop for 1866. 

By thoui it appears that in 18GG the average price of corn in the 
six great C(5rn-gru\ving States of the "NVest, viz.: Kentucky, Ohio, 
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Missouri, was 48 cents the bushel, and 
the average price in the State of New York and the six New Eng- 
land States was $1.30. 

These figures of the Agricultural Bureau in "Washington bring 
out, if we may rely upon them, the startling fact to the Western 
farmer, that in sending corn to the sea by present routes, ho is re- 
quired to give to New York for tolls, and to middlemen for freights, 
profits and commissions, 82 bushels out of every 100 that go forward: 

Statistics are cumulative with proof as to the inefficiency of pres- 
ent routes to fetch- and carry between the inland States and the sea. 
Those contained in the " Annual Report of the Bureau Statistics on 
Commerce and Navigation of the United States for the year ending 
30th June, 18G7," seem to be conclusive, e. g.: 

" Exports of domestic products for the year ending 30th June, 
1867. 

" Total exports, rice, cotton, tobacco, naval stores, spirits of tur- 
pentine, &c., from the Southern States — population 9,.568,709 — 
$328,506,737. Ditto, aU the other States— population 24,937,173— 
$143,201,243," from all the States, including both Northern and 
Southern, inland and seaboard, $471,707,980. 

' In these two aggregates are included §.')0, 000,000 on account of 
breadstuffs and " provisions, including fish and vegetables."* 

Giving two-thirds of this $50,000,000 to the inland States alone, 
they would then export only $2.33 to the inhabitant ; whUe the 
Southern States export upwards of $34 to the inhabitant. 

Among the causes which go to make up these two rates of $2.33 
and $34, what one can have a greater influence than the simple geo- 
graphical fact that one set of States border on the sea, and have 
free access to it, the others are inland, and have to pay heavily to 
get to it ? 

In accounting for the great diflfefence in the values contributed 
for exportation, I find among the agencies concerned none more 
potential than the lack of cheap, confonient, and free highways from 
the "NVest to the sea. 

• Tablo XX VL Bureau of StatiHtics, 18G7. 



/ 



72 

Xliese are only some of t le commercial, economical, and political 
advantages which Virginia, by virtue of her geographical position 
and her hydi'ographical features, holds out to the people of the 
"West and the Government, as inducements for the early completion 
of these national highways. 



AS AN INYESTMENT. 

The remunerative character of these two grand lines, both of 
rail and water, is, by existing works, placed beyond question. The 
internal improvements which connect the West with the Atlantic 
seaboard, show clearly enough what a broad margin these Vii'ginia 
works offer to private enterprise. It is so broad and clear that the 
public would nqt be justified in parting with it. 

First and foremost among existing improvements comes the Erie 
Canal. As large as it is, it has proved entirely too small. Never- 
theless, it has paid for itself, has been enlarged, and has Snriched 
the State of New York. Her merchants are now urging that it shall 
be again enlarged, and given the dimensions of a ship canal. It is 
supi^orted by the produce of the Mississippi valley ; yet its west- 
ern terminus does not lie within that valley, and, indeed, is so far 
from its great centres of production and export, that the freight 
which produce has to pay to reach it would, by the Vii'ginia water- 
hne, place it in the Chesapeake Bay. 

Nor does the western terminus either of the New York Central, 
or of the Erie Railway, lie within the Mississippi valley. They are 
both upon the lakes. The gross earnings of the latter road in 18G6 
-1867 were $14,317,213.14, and of the former, $13,979,514, and last 
year (18G8) the Central surprised its stockholders with a dividend 
of 80 per cent. 

The first of these great East and West lines thai has its terminus 
within the borders of the Mississippi valley, is the Pennsylvania 
Railroad. Since 1860, its annual dividends have averaged 13 per 
cent.,* and its gi-oss earnings last year were $17,233,497.31 — a sum, 
be it remembered, greater than the entire estimated cost of the 
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, from Richmond to the Ohio River. 

The second road runs from that river to the Chesapeake Bay. It 
is the Baltimore and Ohio Railway. It has better western termini ; 
but not BuSix gentle curves, nor easy grades, as the Pennsylvania 

• President of tho Company. 



73 

road. Its stock is high, and earnings supposed to be large, for the 
Company have ceased to pubhsh them. 

The western terminus of each of these roads is, as an inspection 
of Map III. -will make plain, not in the heart of the Mississippi 
valley, nor within easy reach of any of its great centres of trade, 
but far away on the eastern verge. Of the commercial centres in 
that region, Cincinnati is the nearest to it. That part of the Ohio 
River that lies between the mouth of the Great Kanawha and the 
termini of these roads, is frequently frozen in winter, and in sum- 
mer the water there is so low, and na\-igation so often interrupted 
by the vicissitudes of the seasons, that neither of these roads 
l)laces its chief rehanco upon the river to fetch and carry for it. 
Their main rehance for that is upon the railways of the West. 

The distance to Cincinnati from the terminus of the Pennsylva- 
nia road, at Pittsburg, is 314 miles ; from the Baltimore and Ohio, 
at AMieehng, 257 ; at Parkersburg, 205 ; Chesapeake and Ohio, at 
Catletsburg, 175 ; and to this last, also, the distance is only 214 
miles by the river, which is open to navigation as far as Catletsburg 
generally for 10, sometimes for 12 months in the year. The great 
difference in the navigabihty of the Ohio above and below the ter- 
minus of the Virginia road, is owing to the affluents which enter 
between the termini of the two other roads and this. Between 
Wheeling and Catletsburg, at the mouth of the Big Sandy, the Ohio 
receives the di'ainago from a series of river basins that embrace an 
area of 50,000 square miles. With its volume thus increased, the 
Ohio Ijrings this Virginia road in connection with IG.OOO miles of 
navigable water-courses in the Mississippi valley. Moreover, jt will 
take Louisville, Kentucky, fi'om the outside of the commercial 
circle, and place her within its mystic ring. 

This Vii'ginia improvement will make that city, with Cincinnati, 
the two eastern doors to the Mississippi valley. These cities look 
toward the Atlantic. Commercially, their front doors are toward 
the sea. These improvements will open them, and make them the 
gi-eat thoroughfares thi-ough which the commerce between that val- 
ley and the Atlantic sea-ports of the country is to pass. By rail, 
Louisville is 1,000 miles from shipping at New York. Tliis pent-up 
city, by connecting with the Chesapeake and Ohio Kailwaj' through 
a road south of the Ohio, may bring herself within G50 miles, by 
rail, of the tide-water harbors of the Chesapeake, and by extending 
her Kentucky and Virginia railway to meet the Virginia and Ken- 
tucky road at Cumberland Gap, she may place herself within 700 
miles of Hampton Roads. Thence, 293 statute miles is the distance 



74 

to Sandy Hook ; so that this route will bring Louisville by rail and 
sea 7 miles nearer to Sandy Hook than she now is by rail to New 
York. And with the water-line open, the agi'icultural produce of 
the fertile country for which these improvements would make her 
the inland market, would be delivered in New York at the rate of 10 
cents the bushel for gx-ain cheaper than it now can by any existing 
route. 

Length of Western Baihvaijs and NavigaUe Water Courses that 
these Virginia Routes would connect with the ChesajjeaJce Bay. 

The farmers in Ohio and many parts of the West are cut off fi-om 
the corn mai-kets of New York and the world by the cost of railway 
transportation. In like manner, those of Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and 
Nebraska, and all the country above the mouth of the Ohio, situated 
more than 15 or 20 miles from navigable waters, are cut off by way 
of the Gulf. They are shut up. 

The population of the inland States in 18G7, thus cut off from the 
markets of the seaboard, was 14,GG0,000 souls, and the length of 
their railways 17,622 miles.* 

According to the same authority the aggregate length of all the 
railways in the whole country is 39,244 miles. The tonnage moved 
by them last year was 48,488,000,f exclusive of coal, with an average 
value of $150 the ton.| 

Using these figures as data, calculation gives 21,728,000 as the 
number of tons of merchandise moved last year over these Western 
roads, and $3,250,000,000 as its value. 

Let us inquire how much of this produce enters into the list of 
domestic exports of the country. 

The data for answering this inquiry accurately are wanting ; but, 
not to err in favor of the cause we plead, let it be assumed that all 
the grain, flour, breadstuffs and provisions that were sent abroad 
last year came exclusively from these pent-up § States ; that none 
of the States of the Atlantic seaboard, nor of the Gulf, contributed 
to these exports a bushel of corn, a barrel of flour, or a pound of 
meat. 

• Henry V. Poor. 

t Manual of the Railroads of tbo United Staten, 18C8-'C0, p. 28. 

X Poor's cKtimato. I think it is too liij^, but as it is Northern and ^uast-oflScial, 
it is used for the following estimates. 

§ "Pent-up "—the fourteen inland States north of Alabama, Mississii^pi and 
Louisiana, which are shut out from the sea. ' 



75 

Upon these assumptions, the total quantity that found its way 
abroad, out of three thousand and odd millions, was $50,000,000* — 
not quite two per cent. 

What would the farmers of Pennsylvania, New York, and the 
New England States think, and what would be their condition, if 
they could get to the sea with only two per cent, of their domestic 
products ? 

With this great source of commercial wealth and national pros- 
perity thus cut off from the sea, with its present avenues closed 
entirely for five months every year, and crowded to their utmost 
capacity during the other seven, it is no matter of surprise that 
while France and England have dui'ing the last seven years increased 
their domestic exports — the former at the rate of $32,000,000, the 
latter at the rate of $35,000,000 annually— the United States have 
increased hers — simply nil. 

For, besides affording an outlet to the Atlantic of the 19,500 miles 
of railway that these two lines together would connect with the 
Chesapeake Bay, there are IG.SOOf miles there of navigable water- 
courses also. 

To connect these 3G,000 miles of rail and river transportation with 
the sea, and give them an outlet to the ocean through the finest har- 
bors and Ijcst ports in all the land, is one of the legitimate results 
which the Physical Survey of Virginia is, when properly treated, 
calculated to draw after it. 

All the produce and merchandise that is annually floated down 
these rivers or transported over these rails, adds but httlc to the 
commercial prosperity of this country. But a small portion of it 
can stand the present heavy rates thence to the Atlantic seaboard ; 
the rest has either to remain upon the markets of the intei'ior as a 
drug, or if it ventures to try those abroad, it has, for the want of 
convenient and proper highways, to go beyond our own borders and 
seek an outlet through the lakes ; or it has to launch out upon the 
Gulf, and risk the dangers of the sea, and stand the hazards of the 
Floi-ida Pass and Bahama Banks with all their dangers. 

At this moment, in a time of profound peace, Southern planters 
have to pay a marine insurance of $2^ and upwards on every bale of 
cotton that goes abroad through the Straits of Florida. Western 

• Ajonnal Report of Baroan of Statistics, Commerce and Navigation of tbo United 
States, 18(i7, page 37. In this nam are the following items : "Provisions, including 
fish, potatoes and other vegetables, $19,000,00a" 

t Col. Long, U. 8. A. 

X "Bated of marine insaranco, like freights, varj according to season of the year, 



76 

fanners pay like rates on their breadstuff's and provisions ; and in 
•war, these rates will be more than doubled. 



The Early Completion of the Virginia Routes a Public Necessity. 

That the early completion, both of the water-line and the Coosa 
route, with their suiiplemental double track railways, is urgently re- 
quired is palpable to farmers and factors, and indeed to all that can 
be brought to study the subject, or who are guided in their judg- 
ment by the statistics of the West as expounded by the statistician 
of the nation, the Agricultural Bureau of the Government, and by 
others of no less authority. From them it appears that the chief 
agi'icultural staples of these North-western States in 18G7, amounted 
to 1,007,837,779 bushels of grain alone, valued at not less than 
$749,319,001, and that through lack of means of transportation, not 
more than $20,000,000 — not 3 per cent. — found its way to the Atlan- 
tic seaboard and thence to foreign markets. That notwithstanding 
the vast immigration into that country diu'ing the last seven years, 
amounting to 1,487,568 souls,* and the increased breadth of land 
brought into cultivation, the export of our domestic products has 
been less and less every year for the last seven. 

The present population (1869) of the inland States is not far be- 
hind that of England. (Inland States 15,120,000 ;t England 
18,950,000.) 

The amount of produce at present contributed by them to the 
foreign export trade of the country does not annually exceed 
$35,000,000 in value, if it amount to as much, while that of England 
is somewhere between $800,000,000 and $900,000,000 a year. 

Upon their 17,622 miles of railroads, these inland States are said 
to have moved, last year, produce and merchandise to the value of 
$3,259,000,000. J This is exclusive of what was borne by their 2,382 



aj^e and classification of veBscL I get the following from the President of the best 
Insurance Co. in Now Orleans and submit it : 

July 15 to March 15, sail to Liverpool, - • 2^ per cent. 

" " •' " " steamer, - - 2i per cent. 

March 15 to July 15, " - - IJ per cent. 

" " •* " sail, • - 2 per cent. 

Private letter dated New Orleans, lltix November, 1868. 
* Delmar. 
t Efitimated. 
X Manual of Railroads of the United States, 1868-9.— H. V. Pooe. 



77 

boats and barges plying up and down their 1G,000 miles of navigable 
water-coiirses, and bearing hither and thither the produce of one of 
the largest and most fertile hydrographical basins in the world. 
Still foreign commerce languishes. It never can Ije revived until a 
way to the sea is opened by which the inland traflSc may enter the 
channels of commerce freed from prohibitory tarifls and exorbitant 
freights. 

Besides the considerations suggested by this array of commercial 
facts and political cii'cumstances in favor of an early opening of 
these two grand routes, there are others which have been aheady 
treated of that make this speedy completion a national necessity. 

Have thepeojcHe of the inland Staf£8 any just claim upon the Govern- 
ment/en' a FREE highway to the sea ? 

The question as to the right of the people of the interior to de- 
mand a fi*ee highway to the sea — of the "West to trade with the 
East without paying tolls — is an important one. That they have, 
seems to have been recognized and admitted by the Government 
when it purchased Louisiana, in order to control the mouth of the 
Mississippi ; and as to a highway between great sections of the coun- 
try, the Government acknowledged the principle when it ofiered 
$20,000,000 to Mexico for the right of way across the Isthmus of 
Tehuantepcc. Had the right been acquired, the way still remained 
to be opened, and that too at an enormous cost. It is now in treaty 
for the right to consti-uct a ship canal across the Isthmus of Darien. 
This, Hke Tchuantcpec, is intended to be a work for the pui-poses of 
commerce between different parts of the country in peace, and not 
for defence in war. 

In proof of the insufficiency of existing routes, we have the fact 
that Norfolk now, with these lines into her back coimti-y not half 
completed, and burdened with high tarilTs, is becoming a cotton port 
of no small importance ; and notwithstanding that her connections 
with the cotton-growing country are by rail and not by water, by 
single and not by double track, and therefore much more expensive 
than they would be if the watcr-Unes connected with the Tennessee 
river were completed — notwithstanding all these drawbacks, that 
seaport town is now receiving cotton by rail from Tennessee, North- 
ern Mississippi, jiVliibnma, and Georgia. The cotton delivered in 
Norfolk from these States and the Carolinas, for the last three years, 
counts up as follows, viz.: In 1865-GG the fifty-fifth part only of the 
total cotton crop found its way there for export. 



78 

But in 1866-7, one-seventeenth, and in 1867-8, one-thirteenth of 
the whole was shipped from Norfolk. 
These are the figures : 

1865-6 38,000 bales. 

1866-7 124,000 bales. 

1867-8 187,000 bales. 

That cotton should come from those parts to Norfolk by rail 
rather than seek the water route through the Florida Pass, is signi- 
ficant enough as to the dangers and difficulties, the waste of time 
and money, attendant upon that navigation. 



THE PECULIAE CLAIMS WHICH VIRGINIA ABOVE ALL THE STATES NOW 
HAS UPON CONGRESS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THESE WORKS 
AT THE GENERAL EXPENSE. 

In 1780, the Congress of the United States pressed Vii'ginia to 
surrender the North-western territory, now comprising the States 
of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, to the General 
Government, reminding her how indispensably necessary such a cession 
was, to establish the Federal Union on a fixed and permanent basis, and 
on principles acceptable to all its respective members ; how essential to the 
public credit and confidence ; to the support of our army ; to the vigor 
of our councils and the success of our measures ; to our tranquillity and 
to our reputation abroad ; to our present safety and future prosperity ; 
to our very existence as a free, sovereign, and independent people. 

Virginia listened to the appeal, and granted the boon on the ex- 
pressed coiidition (among others) that the lands within the territory 
so ceded, should be considered as a common fund, for the use and benefit 
of all the States ( Virginia included), and should be faithfully and bona 
fi'Ie disposed of for no other use or purpose whatever* 

Let us inquire what has been done mth these lands. 

The Oommissioner of the General Land Office in his Report for 
1867, tells us that 189,219,886 acres have been given for roads and 
canals. 

A large portion of this gi*ant consists of the lands ceded by 
Virginia. 

Not one acre out of this magnificent domain has been given for 
the use of anyone of the "original thirteen." One hundi'ed and 

• See Congressional Minutes, Cth September, 1780. 



79 

eiglity-nme millions two hundred and nineteen thousand eight 
hundred and eighty-six acres of land cover an area as gi'eat as that 
now occupied bj all the " old thirteen " put together, leaving out 
only New Jersey. In addition to this there have been appropriated 
and set apart by Congress to be applied for schools, colleges, univer- 
sities, etc. — a large part of which lies also within this grant — a 
further area of ninety-one millions four hundred and three thousand 
two huntli-ed and seventy-two acres. Together, these two quantities 
make an area of 422,848 square miles — more land than would be 
comprised within the limits of the United Kingdom of Gi'eat 
Britain, added to Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Spain and 
Portugal. And of all this Virginia has yet to receive the fii'st acre 
for her use. It may have been for her benefit, for whatever advances 
the prosperity of one State may be beneficial for all. But the gi*ant 
was for the use as weU as the benefit of all the States : And these 
untaxed highways to the sea would be eminently for the use and 
benefit of all the States (Virginia included). 

Times have changed. The Congi-ess of the United States is no 
longer a suppliant at the feet of Virginia, praying her to give of 
her bounties and preserve " our very existence as a free sovei-eign 
and independent people." And she has no voice in the land ; but 
with the eloquence of silence her sons may but point to these facts 
and these routes, to these lands and statutes, and bid lliem speak 
for her, and tell what she has done. 



AS WORKS OF DEFENCE. 

Considered in this light, these new routes assume a magnitude 
of still more commanding proportions and direct national im- 
portance. 

In case of a war in which Canada should become the seat, the 
farmers of tlie "West may icell ask the question, what would become 
of them ? The lakes would be impassable to vessels of commerce, 
and their produce, as recent experience has abundantly taught 
them, could not afford to pay railway freights and monopohes that 
Eastern combinations would be sure to exact. 

The Government is already anxious and the people of the West 
uneasy upon the subject ; for it cannot bo too often repeated that 
in such a war the great chain of lakes •v^uld not commercially be of 
any value to cither belligerent. 

The war of 1812 wa.s, on the lakes, a contest between the ship 



M 



80 

carpenters with their adzes, on the two sides, rather than of arms, 
between the opposing forces. Trees standing in the forest were in 
the morning cut down and ere night were often made into the ribs 
of ships. He that should be first in building and launching fleets 
was sure to be master of the lakes. And it was so. 

There were no canals there then ; but now there is a ship canal 
on that side, none on this ; and in case of war the declaration might 
l)e made from the turrets of an iron-clad fleet, admitted upon the 
lakes through the Canadian canals. In this view the construction 
of a ship canal from the Mississippi into Lake Michigan becomes a 
question which, as a work of lake defence, is of great importance 
and lu'gent necessity. 

Two years ago the Government sent Gen. Wilson to survey the 
Illinois River with the view to its improvement, and the deepening 
of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. 

After careful survey and examination, he recommends the im- 
provement of the river and the enlarging of the canal to a ship 
canal, as a national work, and estimates the cost at $21,339,99G. 

The General says impressively that he is induced to recommend 
" improvements of such magnitude after the fullest consideration 
of the subject, because he believes that nothing else will answer the 
present and futiu-e demands of the national defence and sufficiently 
provide for the immense internal commerce of the country. 

He bases the recommendation chiefly on these grounds, viz. : 

" The English are," he saj-s, " already able, by means of a system of 
internal canals, to pass gunboats of nine feet di-aught into Lakes 
Erie and Ontario, and are contemplating a new canal . which will 
enable them to reach Huron without coming in reach of American 
territory at any point. The canals ah-eady finished were constructed 
avowedly for military as well as commercial purposes, and in case of 
war will enable the English to drive our commerce from the lakes, and 
destroy or lay under contribution nearly every important city on 
our northern frontier. But, in addition, they can inflict upon us a 
still more vital injury, when they have gotten possession of tlie 
lakes, by severing the main line of our communication wUh the East 
for heavij products. ***** 

" There arc but two ways (he continues) in which we can thor- 
ougldy protect our frontier in times of war, and relieve ourselves of 
a continual menace in times of peace. The Government must 
either connect tlie lakes and the Mississippi River by a canal of suffi- 
cient capacity to accommodutc gunboats suitable for service on the lakes, 
or prepare for the annexation or conquest of Canada/ * * * 



81 

•'These States (Illiuois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Mis-' 
Bouri) liavo now reached a stage in their development wlicn cheap 
and direct communication \vith the markets of the workl has be- 
come an absohite commercial necessity, and unless the amplest pro- 
vision is made by our own Government for such communication, and a 
poUcy adopted by Canada which shall give us all the advantages of 
unrestricted trade upon their rivera and canals, our commerce and 
agriculture will bo crippled, before the expiration of a decade, to 
such an extent as to demand not only the enlargement of the lUi- 
nois and Michigan Canal, the improvement of the Illinois Eivcr, and 
the construction of the Rock River and Green Bay Canal, but the 
absohde conquest or annexation of the entire Canadian Confederation ! " 

Such in the eyes of the Engineer Bureau and its officers — and 
they are the experts of the nation — is the importance of a highway 
from the West to the sea. 

Surely the geographical position of Virginia, and the rare advan- 
tages of it to the nation and the West, both in peace and in war, 
as a means of defence, as a source of wealth and a channel of 
commerce, can never have been fairly considered ; for wo are told 
by high authority that the interests in the West which are pressing 
for new, and larger, and safer outlets eastwardly to the Atlantic, 
are such that before another decade the absolute conquest of the 
Canadas, of New Bninswick, Prince Edward's Lsland, Nova Scotia, 
Newfoundland and Belle Isle, and the coast of Labrador, will be- 
come an absolute matter of commercial and national necessity ; for 
the conquest or " annexation " of Canadii spoken of by the military 
engineers of the Government would, in the military aspect of the 
question, be of httle value without all the other British provinces 
and possessions named. 

The offings of the Gulf of St. La^Tcnce are curtained, and the 
approaches to it overlooked by each one of tlioso places as cflfectu- 
ally as in the Gulf of Mexico by Cuba ; and pre<>iscly tho same rea- 
sons which have been urged for the acquisition of the " Queen of 
the ^\jQtilles," would apply to these iron-bound and fi-osty regions. 

Thus that route is beset by difficulties, both pohtical and physical, 
which are well calculated to deter all sober-minded men from the 
idea of war for its sake. 

If we turn our eyes from the North and look to the South, wo 
shall find, from time to time, on the part of the Government, Uke 
manifestations of solicitude for the safety of the commerce of the 
Missisiiippi valley on its way to the Atlantic Ocean in time of war. 

Under the plea of taking the necessary steps for watching and 

6 



82 

protecting it, $200,000,000 have been offered for Cuba, and $7,000,000 
promised for the Island of St. Thomas. Notwithstanding the fact 
patent to the mind of all who use the sea, that the acquisition of 
these strongholds would not give that perfect secmnty which the 
nation requires for Western produce on its way to market in war ; 
nor would it prevent Western commerce from being harassed and 
worried by an enemy's lookouts, privateers and cruisers, from the 
time it cleared the offings of the Balize tOl it passed the Straits of 
Bernini ; for until then it is embayed, and is in a cul de sac. 

In order to satisfy the minds of the farmers in the West on this 
point, is it necessary to remind them how, a few years ago, a Con- 
federate cruiser came into the Gulf, hunted up and sighted theif 
blockading fleet, enticed one of its vessels off, engaged and sunk it, 
and then made her escape ? 

How many merchantmen (considering that the distance at which 
vessels can be seen at sea rarely exceeds 12 miles) might she not 
have captured, had the Mississippi been at that time the chief out- 
let for the produce of the West, and had the Gulf of Mexico been 
dotted with merchantmen bearing it off to market ? 

It is now as it was 20 years ago, when General Jessup wrote his 
famous letter to the President of the James River Canal as to the 
importance of that work as a miUtary necessity.* 

" The two naval depots of Great Britain in our front (said he) — 
Halifax and Bermuda — (and he might have added the two others — 
Jamaica and the Bahamas), command our Atlantic (and Gulf) coasts 
precisely as the bastions of a fortress command its curtains : the for- 
mer may control our commerce with Europe; the latter, that vnth the 
East and West Indies, South America and the Gulf. To counteract the 
military defences of HaHfax, we have already the naval stations of 
Kittery (Me.), New York, and Boston. To check Bermuda, we 
have but a single position on our whole coast, as before stated, which 
is Norfolk. It is a matter of surprise to the intelligent military 
reader, that a position possessing so many strategic advantages 
should have been so long neglected. In regard to that position, 
nature has spoken in language not to be mistaken, and which we 
xjannot disregard without endangering most important interests. 
That prudent forecast, so characteristic of a practical people, would 
long flince, I am persuaded, have induced us to occupy Norfolk as a 
position, not only where a large naval force might concentrate, but 



• Letter dated Washington City, 3d May, 1850, to Thomas H. Ellis, Esq., Presi- 
dent James Biver and ELanawha CanaL 



83 

as a depot of construction, upon alarf^e scale, had the improvements 
of the cou7}try in its rear admitted of a prompt collection of force 
and supplies for its defence. The James River Canal, with other 
improvements, will afford the means of absolute security to that im- 
portant position under all circumstances." 

Moreover, the approaches from the sea to Sandy Hook and to the 
Chesapeake are gi*eatly in favor of the latter. In war, light-houses 
would be extinguished, and all light-boats, beacons and buoys 
removed. The channel way to Sandy Hook is narrow and intricate, 
so that a vessel flying from a superior force in war, to seek protec- 
tion under the forts, or shelter in the harbor, would run great risk 
of stranding. On the other hand, the entrance to the Chesapeake 
is wide, open, and clear. Ships can run in there by night as well as 
by day, and in all weathers. 

Sandy Hook is hydrogi'aphically very easy to blockade ; the 
Chesapeake difficult. The offings of Sandy Hook are sheltered on 
the north and west, forming a lee under which blockaders may find 
shelter from all gales coming from either of these two quarters of 
the horizon. 

At Sandy Hook the blockaders would have to watch a ship chan- 
nel-way only 900 yards wide. The entrance to the Chesapeake is 
as wide as the distance (9 miles) between the Capes of Virginia. 
The coast from Hatteras to Henlopen is rigid and inhospitable, 
offering neither shelter nor refreshment to an enemy in distress. 
And as for defence, these two national highways connecting the 
Chesapeake with the Great West would simply make that bay a 
magazine of inexhaustible supphes, and such as the world never saw. 

Hitherto military men have considered the Chesapeake Bay ex- 
ceedingly difficult, if not incapable, of successful defence, against a 
maritime power. But, then, it was without any such connections 
as are now proposed, and without the supplies and resources which 
these connections will bring. 

They will bring into close contact the granary of the country, and 
its marts of commerce. They pass at the foot of mountains filled 
with the best iron and coal ; over mines of lead and copper ; 
among caves of saltpetre ; and through forests of the finest timber. 
Existing improvements, extending back from the Chesapeake, 
already pass through forests of yellow pine, and furnish naval 
stores, rice, hemp, and tobacco in abundance. The dock-yards and 
magazines for receiving military supplies, materials and munitions, 
and for fabricating them into engines and implements of war, are 
already there. Therefore let this magnificent sheet of water be but 



8i 

connected with the West by means of those two iinpx-ovements, and 
furnished with those engines of defence which modern warfare has 
brought into play : — let the strength and resources of the West be 
concentrated there ; — and then the navies of the world combined 
may be defied. 

Unless these routes be utilized, vessels laden in time of war with 
Western produce will have to pass the lookout vessels of foreign 
naval stations, and run the gauntlet of hostile fleets, cruisers and 
privateers, for the distance of nearly 2,000 miles by the Gulf route ; 
and, if they attempt the lake route in time of war with England, 
an enemy would be there to overlook them all the way from Lake 
Huron to Buffalo, and completely to block that route against all 
commerce fi-om the West. 

Much has been said about the importance of the Erie and other 
canals as works of lake defence, when it is obvious that in a war in 
which Canada is to take part, the lakes as a commercial highway, 
•yviU be of little value to either of the contending parties, for a 
single hostile gun on either side can forbid to the other the use of 
the St. Clair flats as a passway for its trading vessels between lakes 
Huron and Erie. 

Study the map of Europe ; look at the lines of internal improve- 
ment there from the centre aU round to the sea ; consult the ^ages 
of history, and it will be seen what importance the great powers 
there attach to a good seaport ; and what both peoj^le, government, 
and nations have paid for the right to connect it by means of works 
of internal improvement with the back country. 

The only inland water-lines by which the Mississippi valley can be 
connected with the ocean, so as to have at all times, and under all 
circumstances in peace and in war, a convenient and unmolested 
highway to the Atlantic sea-front, lead through Virginia. The 
Alleghany IMountains afford no passes for such to the north of us, 
and, until the country avails itself of these, there is no protection in 
war for Western commerce, and farmers there must console them- 
selves as best they may, under the humiliating reflection that they 
are cut off with their produce from commercial intercourse with the 
great markets of their country, from the metropolis of the nation, 
and from the highway of nations : — that if they go by lake or Gulf, 
the way is not their own, but such as others may ovei-look, and, at 
pleasure, dispute and endanger, if not forbid. Whereas, their rights 
through Virginia none can dispute, and the way is whoUy their own, 
and as safe and secure in war as in jieace. 

In short, considering that the expenses via New Orleans and the 



85 \ 

Florida Pass ai-e, in a great measure, prohibitory to North-western 
breadstuflfn, and that the Erie Canal has not the capacity to pasa 
more of Western produce than it is now doing, and that this pro- 
duce cannot stand the charges of railway transportation from its 
place of production to New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, it is 
clear that "Western farmers can contribute but little more to the ex- 
ports of the country until a new way to the sea has been opened for 
them. Until this be granted them, the commerce of that portion 
of the country cannot expand proportionally with the growth of the 
West. 

Were the inhabitants of such a vast, fertile, and growing region 
of country ever known to bo content on finding themselves thus 
shut out permanently from the sea ? 

The people of the inland States may urge, with justice, another 
claim to these routes, as works for the common defence. As a rule, 
the provisions hitherto made for the common defence consist chiefly 
in the erection of fortifications along the sea-coast and of works for 
the protection of the seaport towns ; of the establishment along the 
Atlantic seaboard of dock-yards, arsenals, and armories ; and for the 
maintenance of the army and navy. The expenditures for all of these 
purposes are made chiefly along the seaboard and in the Atlantic 
States. Counting them up fi-om the foiindation of the Government 
till now, they cannot amount, in the aggregate, to less than several 
thousand millions of dollars. 

A lai-ge jvirt of this money as well as that for surveying and 
lighting and improving the harbors of the sea-coast was and is paid 
by the people of the West. The advantages to the Atlantic States 
of having all this money expended among them, and the disadvan- 
tages to the inland States of having to raise it, have been long felt 
by the people of the West as an unequal distribution of the burthens 
of taxation as well as an unfair allotment among the States of the 
benefits arising from the annual expenditure of large sums of public 
money. 

These feelings, in the breasts of Western men, are not by any 
means mollified by the reflection that while all this has been going 
on, under the plea of common defence and general welfare of the 
ichole country, they arc still left to find their way in war to the mar- 
ket-places of their own counti-y as best they may, through foreign 
waters, and beyond the jurisdiction of their own Government. 

Nor are these Virginia routes of less importance to the Middle 
and New England States than they are to the inland States of the 
West They connect the Atlantic seaboard with the heart of the 



86 

l^Iississippi valley. They aflford not only tlie cheapest highway be- 
tween the granary of the country and its market-places in peace, 
but in war they offer inland lines of communication which no enemy 
can cut. Supplies from the "West reaching the Chesapeake Bay 
through these inland routes, may be dispensed thence through in- 
ternal water-lines that are never Uable to interruption in war. 

"Western suppHes arriving in this, the Mediterranean sea of the 
United States, may be forwarded thence by inland communication 
through bay, canal, and sound, and be dehvered more cheaply in 
war at the wharves of Philadelphia and New York, and on the 
shores of New England, than by existing routes they can be dehver- 
ed now, in time of profound peace. 

These Virginia routes, when opened, will give New England and 
the North cheaper bread and better markets. 

Let us, with these Virginia routes unopened, pictiirc to ourselves a 
g^eat calamity w-hich is not beyond the circle of possibilities, viz. : a 
war with England. The great lakes will then be closed as a com- 
mercial thoroughfare, and the canals connected with them on either 
side rendered useless. The demands of the East upon the West 
for subsistence and supplies will be of vital necessity, and the only 
available passway fi-om the Mississippi valley to the Atlantic sea- 
board will be through the Gulf of Mexico. It will be crowded with 
merchantmen bearing their rich freight to the Eastward. This will 
attract the enemy's cruisers, and the Gulf wiU swarm with them. 

The cost of the fleet sent down there to protect this commerce, 
and give convoy to the vessels laden with it, will, irrespective of 
losses and captui'e in such a war, be sufficient, and more than suf- 
ficient, now, in time of peace, to construct these lines through Vir- 
ginia. They are works which, in their way, are calculated to pro- 
vide for the common defence, and promote the general welfare, far 
more effectually than any yet devised. They are girders necessary to 
bind and hold the Union together. 



A LINE OF STEAMERS WITH EUROPE. 

Another kindred subject incident as to the geographical position 
of the State, and one closely connected with its prosperity and the 
development of its physical resoui'ces, is the establishment of direct 
trade with foreign countries. 

The value of the agricultural products exported from the whole 
country in 18G6 was, according to the official report of the Govern- 



87 

ment, $412,281,302.* Nearly all of it was the produce of the soc- 
tion of country which these two linos of improvement would 
bring in connection with the ports of Virginia. Of theso $412,- 
284,302, $283,000,000, or 68 per cent., was iu " cotton and its manu- 
factures," and $41,000,000, or 10 per cent., in "breadstuffs." Total, 
78 per cent. 

These articles are sent forward in the raw and bulky state. To 
remunerate the producer, they require cheap transportation, such 
as water can afford ; for, let it be remembered, such articles can go 
750 miles by rivor, and GOO by oui* fi"ce canal, as cheaply as they can 
be carried 100 miles by rail, or 20 by common roads in the T\'cst. 

This Report has for its object, not only to treat of the geographical 
position of Virginia in all its bearings at home, but to point out 
their practical importance to other States, to the nation, and the 
world at large. 

We have considered the physical relations in which the Chesa- 
peake Bay, with its fine creeks, rivers and harbors, stands to the 
people of the West. It remains now to show how, by means of its 
geographical position and physical attributes, it extends, with its 
influences, beyond the sea, touches the interests of European nations 
and reaches the commerce of the world. 

Holland holds, geographically, on the eastern shores of the 
Atlantic Ocean, the same position with regard to Central Europe 
that Virginia, on its western shores, does to our back country. As 
with Virginia, so in Holland : — commercial thoroughfares leading to 
the sea from the back country geogi-aphically tributary to her, in- 
stead of taking the shortest route, have gone round about ; and 
instead of passing through HoDand, have sought circuitous out- 
lets, either to the north or to the south of her boi'ders. 

The ports of Holland, like those of Virginia, are the best harbors 
along the open sea-front of North-western Europe. Like ours, the 
Dutch ports are central ; and like ours, they are the farthest ports 
to the north that are never blocked by ice. 

The hornl waters of the Rhine, which enters the sea through Hol- 
land, like those of our James with the Mississippi, iuoscnlat^^ 
closely with the head waters of the Danube, which flnds its way into 
the Black Sea : — in Europe, those two rivers have already been 
connoctrd through the Lndwig Can:d, as wo are doing oui's through 
the James River and Kanawha improvement ; there they have 
already established a water line into the back country from the 

• Commiasioncr of Agriculhjre for the year 1866, page 96. 



88 

Zuider See and the ports of Holland, — as we propose to extend ours 
from the Chesapeake and the ports of Virginia, — for the distance of 
four or five thousand miles inland. 

At the general expense, the Government of Holland is just com- 
pleting a line of internal improvements, leading by canal, river and 
ran, from Flushing to Cologne, and spending $4,000,000 to fit 
Flushing for trade with America. 

There, as here, the people have been looking with longing eyes for 
the day when the ports of Holland, Hke those of Virginia, shaU be- 
come the great entrepots of trade and commerce between the centre 
of Europe and the heart of America. 

The Rhino is open to steamboat navigation fi'om its mouth to 
Manheim, a distance of 390 Enghsh miles. Manheim and Cologne 
and other landings on the Rhine are the principal points inland, 
where the American-bound emigrants from Bavaria, Switzerland, 
Hungary, Bohemia, Austria, Baden, Wurtemberg, Saxony, and the 
centre of Europe, at present assemble, as points of departure, on 
theh- circuitous route to this country via Bremen or Hamburg. 

These two are at present the chief ports of embarkation. Were 
there a line of steamers, suitably equipped and estabhshcd between 
Holland and Virginia, these emigrants could, when the Chesapeake 
and Ohio railway is finished, be landed on the banks of the Ohio, or 
of the IMissouri, or of any of the navigable tributaries of the Mis- 
sissippi, with only 403 miles of railway transportation and with only 
176 miles, should the project of making the James River navigable 
for steamers up to Lynchburg, and the improvement of the Holston 
up to Saltville be reahzed. 

The route which emigrants now take, imposes upon them the 
fatigues, hardships, and expenses of 1,000 to 1,500 miles of railway 
traveUing in Europe and America, before they reach their new 
homes in the far West. By changing the point of embarkation to 
one of the Dutch ports and taking the Virginia route, they would 
come down the Rhine all the way by steamboat, to embark in the 
Dutch- American line for Virginia. Arriving in Hampton Roads, 
they would have the choice of routes thence, according to destina- 
tion, and each leading through a climate far less severe in winter 
than any of the more northern lines can offer, and quite as dehght- 
ful in summer. 

If bound to any part of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, 
Iowa, or Nebraska, or to the States north of tliem ; — or to Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, or North 
Alabama ; — or if aiming for the hill counti'y of the Carolinas, or 



89 

Georgia — they woiald all take the same river steamer, wliicb iu eigLt 
hours from Hampton Roads would land them in Richmond, the 
capital of the State, a city of G0,000 inlmbitauts, beautifully situated 
at the foot of the falls of the James River, which, in the distance of 
3^ miles, have a perpendicular descent of 84 feet. 

Here, those that are bound for Ohio and the North-west would 
take the cars on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, which, winding 
over the mountains in gentle curves, and through the most enchanting 
scenery, would take them by the famous mineral springs of Vir- 
ginia ; and, after a pleasant ride of twenty hours, land them on the 
banks of the Ohio River. 

Here, taking one of the fine "Western high-pressure steamers, 
which look like floating palaces rather than boats, and going with 
the cun-ent, they would the next day, with their wives and children, 
be landed, fi'esh and lithe, in Cincinnati or LouisviDe ; and so on in 
succession from river town to river town, until they reached St. 
Paul on the Upper IVIississippi, or had ascended the Missouri 3,100 
miles fi'om its mouth, and landed among the gold and silver mines of 
Montana. Or, stopping short of this, they might step from the 
boat at Kansas City or Omaha, and take the Pacific Railway for' 
the " Gold Diggings " of California. 

In passing thi'ough Virginia on these routes, they would find the 
people along the first part of it emi^loyed chiefly iu farming, fishing, 
boat-building and seafaring, or in the cultivation of fruits and 
vegetables, such as the fig, vine, apricot, tomatoes, early vegetables, 
and melons, with peaches, pears, plums, apples, cherries and dama- 
scenes, for the supply of the markets in Baltimore, Philadelphia, 
New York, and other Northern cities. 

As he recedes from the Chesapeake Bay, the observant immigrant 
would find these several industries reheved and diversified by other 
occupations, such as gi-azing, stock-raising, wool-gi-owing, mining, 
and timber-getting. At Richmond there are many manufactuiing 
establishments and work-shops of various kinds. Hard by, are de- 
posits of bituminous coal, and mines of natural coke ; further on, 
he would observe immense deposits of ii'on, with miners busy at 
their vocation, and furnaces in full blast. 

Beyond the mountains, he would note a marked change in the 
vegetation, and in the aspects of the country ; and among tlicm 
would be the " 8dgar-orcliard.s," as the people there call the groves 
of sugar-maple ; all pLintcd by nature, and the most beautiful tree 
iu cm- primeval forests. If the journey be in February or March, 



00 

tlien whole families would be seen collecting tlie water and boiling 
it down into syrup over the fires of the "sugar-camp."* 

Also, beyond the mountains, and on the wayside of this route, are 
oil-wells and the salt-works, with the famous coal-fields, of the great 
Kanawha. These coal measures are said to be the richest in the 
whole country, and to be unsurpassed in the variety and excellence 
of their deposits, especially those of sphnt and cannel coals. 

If the place of destination be anywhere to the South-west, as in 
the direction of Western Georgia, then the new-comer will take 
the Danville road at Richmond, which is now in process of comple- 
tion — ^being an air-line — to Atlanta, Georgia, where he would be 
landed the next day after leaving Richmond, and where he would 
find other roads leading off to the four quarters. 

This road passes through Charlotte, North Carolina, where the 
United States have a mint, and it runs longitudinally along that 
Piedmont country which, with its Italian-like skies, salubrity of ch- 
mate, and fertility of soil, enchanted the early settlers, and ex- 
hausted their praises. They called it the "Garden of Eden." It is 
still the sanitarium of the people who inhabit the malarious districts 
in the lowland country of Georgia and the Carolinas. 

This route will take the immigrant through a fine grain-gTowing 
and stock-raising country, and through the best tobacco region in 
the land. 

It will be difficult for the traveller from Germany, Central, or 
Northei'n Euroj^e, to realize the change that he will here find, after 
a few hours, in climate and production, especially in the ripening of 
fruits, and the coming on of harvest. After his day and a half or 
two days' travel in this direction, he will find in Marchf the table 
served with strawberries and green peas, gathered from the open 
fields and the gardens, and the wheat harvest commencing in May 
or early June. 

Those who prefer some middle destination, as Tennessee, Southern 
Kentucky, North Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, or Texas, \\ill 
" shunt " from the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, at Charlottesville ; 
or, from the Danville Road at Burkeville, to get on to the Virginia 
and Tennessee Road at Lynchburg — an inland town, famous for its 
tobacco factories, enterprise, and wealth. 

* The making of maple sugar is an important branch of industry in the United 
States entirely unknown in Europe ; the annual yield being 46,120,083 pounds of 
sugar, and 1,597,274 gallons of molasses. — United States Census, 1860. 

t Strawberies appeared in Norfolk this year (1869) 20th March. 



SI 

This road, before it leaves Virginia, carries its passengers by the 
salt works and gypsum beds of Abingdon, and through a fine fi-uit, 
gi-ain, gi'ape, and stock country ; — rich also in minerals, as lead, 
copper, iron, zinc, coal, etc. ; — and then down that beautiful valley 
of the Tennessee, ah-eady described, where navigation is said, even 
in the severest winters, never to be interrupted by a "peUicle of 
ice." 

But if, instead of any of the countries through which these three 
routes pass, or to which they lead, the immigrant should fancy 
to estabhsh himself anywhere along the Atlantic seaboard, the 
means of cheap, quick, and comfortable conveyance ai'e ready at 
hand. 

And there is no region that offers more encouragement to the 
industrious and sober immigrant, especially the Dutch, than the 
eastern counties of North Carolina, for they are all tributary to 
Norfolk. 

Here amidst a net work of navigable creeks and rivers, and be- 
tween the parallels of 34° and 36° north latitude, He the famous 
" pocosins," or " swamp lands," as they are called, of North Caro- 
hna. They are in bodies of from 5,000 to 90,000 acres.* They are 
the property of the Board of Literatui-e of the State, and the pro- 
ceeds arising from the sale of them are pledged for educational 
purposes. They may be now purchased at from 75 cents to $1.25 
the acre ; or even by a colony of immigrants on better terms, for 
the Government offers to those who will undertake to drain them in 
considerable bodies, one-half for the other. 

These lands, hke the " swamp lands " of the Mississippi bottoms, 
are alluvial, exceedingly fertile, but much more easy of reclamation. 
"Well authenticated instances are given by those who are familiar 
•with this part of the country, of fields which have yielded, without 
rest or manure, annually, for 100 years successively, a crop of maize, 
each crop averaging from 50 to 60 bushels to the acre. On large 
portions of these lands the timber is excellent, and wiU more than 
pay the cost of drainage. 

They are thus described in a recent communication made by the 
Superintendent of Pubhc Education, and endorsed by the Governor 
of the State as correct : — 

" They are not affected by tide or salt water. Though called 
swamp lands, their sites are generally elevated above the surround- 
ing country, and consequently their drainage is practicable, and 

* Gov. of North Carolina. 



92 

when tlruincd and thoroughly worked, soil of remarkable fertility 
will be obtained. 

" Of some of these lands the soil is alluvial, of others, peaty ; and 
underlying large portions of them are immense beds of shell marl. 
This marl is accessible, easily and cheaply removed, and apphed as 
a fertilizer. 

" Some of the swamps are covered with timber, such as pine, 
juniper, cypress, oak, poplar, ash, and gum ; others are destitute of 
a woody growth, not covered, but satiu'ated with water. These 
savannas are peaty in their comj^osition, and rightly treated can be 
made repositories of valuable fertilizers. 

" Situated within these swamps, and occupying their highest parts, 
are a number of lakes containing say fi'om 10,000 to 25,000 acres, 
which can be easily and cheaply drained, and rendered valuable for 
tillage. 

" These lands will produce Indian corn, cotton, rice, all kinds of 
vegetables, grapes and fruits, esj^ecially the grape. 

" In this region fi'uit and vegetables mature much earher than in 
the Northern or "Western States, and can be placed in the great 
Eastern markets of the republic weeks before they can be produced 
in the ^dcinity of those places. 

" Cattle can be raised here easily and numerously. 

" As these lands lie convenient to water or raih-oad transporta- 
tion, and in the centre of the United States Atlantic coast line, their 
access to jjrofitable markets can hardly be surpassed. 

" The salubrity of the climate in this region is noted. 

" It is confidently, and I believe justly, afirrmed that the swamps 
of Eastern North Carolina do not generate the malaria which in the 
marshy regions further south carries malignant fevers ; and the ex- 
perience of a large population devoted for over a century to open 
air pursuits, will confirm the statement that the laborers here, in the 
woods, in the fields, and on the waters, are generaUy as healthy as 
in any part of the country." 

The winters are not so rigorous as in higher and drier localities of 
the same latitude, the climate being tempered by the infiuence of 
the Gulf Stream, and the proximity of the ocean ; and the same 
causes also reduce the heats of summer, and aid in promoting the 
healthfulness of the chmate. 

This region is at present to be reached fi'om Norfolk, either coast- 
wise or by canals ; and there is a bill pending before the Legislature 
of the State, proposing to appropriate $2,250,000 for the consti'uc- 
tion of a road through this region from "Wilmington to Norfolk. 



93 

The waters of Eastern North Carolina, like those of Eastern 
Virginia, abound in piscatorial wealth. Some of the seines used in 
the shad and herring fisheries are a mile and a half long (2,700 
yards), and 18 feet deep, and more than 200,000 herrings arc some- 
times caught with them at a single haul.* 

But should the immigraut fancy neither these lowlands nor their 
latitudes, but prefer still more southern climes, then there is already 
in complete order and equipment the Seaboard and Roanoke Rail- 
road, which, with its connections, will carry him through the cele- 
brated pitch-pine region, which, with its groves of cypress and forests 
of live oak — the teak of America — skii-ts the coast all the way from 
Norfolk via Florida to the borders of Texas. From these forests 
comes the best ship timber for the United States Navy, with naval 
stores, masts, spars, and yellow pine for the ship-yards of Europe. 
This route will lead him also through groves of magnoHa, through 
forests of vines, creepers and parasites, and among plantations of 
rice and cotton until the thu-d day, when he will find himself in the 
land of flowers and among the orange groves of Florida. Or, if the 
new comer fancy to estabhsh himself in that dehghtful part of the 
State which is tributary to Fredericksburg or Alexandi-ia on one 
hand, or to Petersburg on the other, there is a choice among several 
routes. There is a water route by bay and river from Norfolk both 
to Alexandria and to Fredericksburg. There is another route to 
Fredericksburg, viz. : by steamer up the James to Richmond and 
thence over the Richmond, Fredericksbui-g and Potomac Rail- 
way. 

Alexandria is in sight of "Washington, and is the gate-way to a fine 
country on the lower Shenandoah and the upper Potomac. This 
country stretches along the foot of the Blue Ridge for many 
miles, or spreads out into fine pastures among the Alleghany 
Mountains. 

The Orange and Alexandria, the Manassas Gap, the Loudoun and 
Hampshire Railroads, all radiate fi-om this ancient city out into this 
beautiful country. 

Fredericksburg is sixty miles south of "Washington, and in a few 
miles of the gold region of Spottsylvania, Staflford, Culpepper and 
other counties. It is famed for the salubrity of its situation, its 
refined society and elegant hospitality. 

The Petersburg and Norfolk Railway will land the immigrant in 
Petersburg, or he may come by steamer to Richmond ; a run thence 

• 220,000. -Offlcial Report of General Ovrynn, 1807. 



94 



of 25 miles by the Richmond and Petersburg Railway will land him 
there. Thcnco the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad leads into 
North Carohna, and so on indefinitely to the south-west, with con- 
nections branching off to Raleigh, Columbia, Milledgeville — the 
capitals of Georgia and the Carolinas — all occupying central posi- 
tions, and each situated in a delightful part of its State. 

If, on the other hand, his fancy be for more northern latitudes, 
he may take a Bay steamer, and in 12 hours from Hampton Roads 
land in Baltimore ; or on a sea steamer for New York, and land 
there in 24 hours, — distance 279 miles. 

Thus sailing from Holland and landing in Virginia, the points of 
departure and arrival would be at the most central, commanding, 
and convenient points both in Europe and America. 

Distances to Cincinnati and St. Louis via Samhnrfj and New York, and via the 
Ports of Holland aiid M,rginia, from various places in Central Europe. 



DiSTANCBS (IN Nautical Miles) to Dncinsati, vla — 



From 



HAMTitTRQ 
AND 

New Yobk. 



Holland 

AMD 
VlBGDHA. 



Berlin 

Leipsic 

Stuttgart. . . 
Magdeburg 
Frankfort . . 
Dresden . , , 

Munich 

Vienna. . . . 
Manheim . . 
Cologne. . . , 
Strasburg. , 
Hanover . . . 
Breslau. . . . 

Prague 

Basle 

Metz 

Brussels . . , 
Antwerp . . , 



4,650 
4,700 
4,860 
4,630 
4,760 
4,760 
4,920 
5,040 
4,800 
4,740 
4,880 
4,590 
4,890 
4,850 
4,930 
4.870 
4,820 
4,810 



4,370 
4,440 
4,410 
4,280 
4,320 
4,500 
4,450 
4,670 
4,350 
4,210 
4,420 
4,320 
4,630 
4,590 
4,480 
4,260 
4.130 
4,100 



95 



DisrA.'«a9 (« Xacticul Mn.cs) to St. Loris via — 



Berlin 

Loip.sic. . . . 
Stuttgart . . 
Mn},'il<l)Urg 
Dresilon . . . 
Frankfort . . 
Munich . . . 
Vienna . . . . 
Mauhcim . . 
C\)li);,'ne . . . 
Strashurg. . 
Hanover . . . 
Breelau . . . . 
Prague . . . . 

Basle 

Metz 

Brassels . . . 
Antwerp . . . 



TTAvni'Ro 

AHU 

New York. 



4,910 
4,'J60 
5,120 
4,000 
5,020 
5,020 
5,180 
5,300 
5,070 
5,000 
5,140 
4,MJ0 
5,150 
5.110 
5,200 
5,140 
5,090 
5,080 



Hol.I,A.VD 
AND 



4, ceo 
4,800 
4,C70 
4,5o0 
4,770 
4,580 
4,750 
4,9.30 
4,610 
4,470 
4, 690 
4,590 
4,900 
4,830 
4,740 
4,530 
4,390 
4,370 



The distance from Hamburg to New York is 3,550 sea miles. 

Flushing and Norfolk are taken as the points of departure in 
Holland and Virginia. The distance between them by sea is 150 
miles less than the distance between Hamburg and New York. (The 
port of Bremen — Bremer-Haven — is 50 miles nearer than Gluckstadt, 
the port of Hamburg. ) Therefore, if we subtract 3,550 fi-om the pre- 
ceding distances via Hamburg, we shall have the distance inland and 
on the two continents wliich emigrants, taking the route via Ham- 
burg and New York, have to travel, and that distance is chiefly by 
raiL Thus the distance, \-ia Hamburg and New York, fi-om Vienna 
to St. Louis is 5,300 miles, 1,750 of which are inland, and most of 
it by rail. 

Tlie distance between the same points, via Holland and Virginia, 
is 370 miles less, with sea or river navigation all the way except the 
Ludwig Canal, in Europe, and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, in 
America, 428 miles — idtimately to be 403. 

Flushing is situated at the Balize of the Rhine, and on the deltas 
of the Scheldt. Flushing is oidy five hours from England. It is at 
the other end of the Eugl-sh Cliannt;!. Easy of ingress and egress, 
its ofi&ngs are as convenient, as safe, and as sure as a navigator could 
desire. 

They are already preparing docks there for the accommodation 
of the immense direct trade which those well-planned lines are 



96 

destined to bring to Flushing, and are looking out for connections 
with this country. 

Our trade last year with the two cities of Bremen and Hamburg 
alone — and we had to pass through the ofl&ngs of Flushing to reach 
them — was upwards of $26,000,000 each way, making in the aggre- 
gTTte $52,572,933.* Most of this is the German trade, and much of it 
went to parts that the Dutch improvements will hereafter better 
supply through Flushing. 

Of these $20,000,000 of exports, $13,443,210 were in the Southern 
staples of cotton and tobacco ; and of the rest, $4,561,465 were in 
wood, oils and animal productions, etc., in which the back country, 
naturally tributary to the Chesapeake, is also very rich. Besides 
this, there was an indirect import trade via England, France, Bel- 
gium, Holland, etc., as per table. 

* Ajmoal Beport Bureau of Statistics, 1867. 



97 



«o »-• l-O « 



3 



3 



C5 
00 



o 

t 



I 



O 00 d « 



CO t-l t^ 



4 

a 



O CS O CM o 



s 








o 












o 


to 




o 


o" 


00 


l-l 


o 


■«n 





CO <M ^H CO 00 



CI (M 00 O 



•-( rH 00 



<M 00 CI CI 
O ■»*< CI 00 
•<1< 1-1 -.j< rH 



'^ 



I 



s 

^ 



.-I 1-t l.o 



t-l ■»»» Ca O rH rl t-l 



^ 


00 


tc 


J-1 










CI 


t~ 




o 


o 


o 


o 


■-H 




2 cS 

:g S O 



1 



Principal articles (value of $100,000 and over) imported were 
from : 

Pbussia — ^Bristles, $130,899 ; buttons, $209,031 ; cotton, manufac- 
tiu-ed, $509,226 ; flax, manufactured, $143,931 ; furs, $238,317 ; hair, 
manufactured, $210,471 ; iron, manufactured, $181,158 ; steel, $934,- 
039; lead, manufactured, §842,277 ; leather, manufactured, $168,416; 
silk, manufactured, $2,270,503 ; spii'its and wine, $100,885 ; wool, 
&a, manufactured, $6,683,078. 

Saxoxy — Books, $106,967 ; cotton, «&c., manufactured, $3,756,620 ; 
beads, $286,696 ; flax, &c., manufactured, $176,265 ; fui's and skins^ 
$338,494 ; musical instruments, $212,158 ; silk, $241,257 ; wool, 
$2,973,449. 

Bavabu — G-lass, $572,041 ; lead pencils, $168,439 ; spirits and 
wines, $251,970 ; willow and wood ware, $189,728 ; wool, $148,290. 

WuRTEMBERG — Cottou, manufactured, and ready-made clothing, 
$954,714. 

Hesse Darmstadt — Spii'its and wine, $253,656 ; leather, $167,243. 

Frankfort— Leather, $141,279 ; furs, $197,453. 

Baden— Leather, $104,816. 

Saxe Meiningen — Toys and dolls, $240,810. 

Others— Leather, $106,700. 

A Une of steamers has been recently established between Balti- 
more and Bremen. It is doing well. But Norfolk and Flushing 
are between Baltimore and Bremen ; they are on the wayside, and 
are 450 miles (nearly two days) nearer together than are Baltimore 
and Bremen. 

Thus Virginia — with her works of internal improvement already 
in es.'.v / with the advantages of her geographical position, and with 
tliis Baltimore line of steamers to beckon her on — has a combina- 
tion of circumstances peculiarly in favor of her long-coveted boon 
of direct trade. The times for it seem now more propitious than 
they ever have been. 

Virginia, like the South and the West, needs labor and instant 
immigration. 

These improvements being complete, the best sea route for immi- 
gi-ation from all Southorn and Central Germany, Belgium and 
Holland, into tlie South and West, will be from Flushing to the 



00 

Chesapeake, which is tho most central point on the coast, and the 
most convenient position for rouchinj,' all parts of the interior. 

From Norfolk to the Li/iird the distance by great circle is 3,074* 
miles, and the best route lies in that part of the ocean where navi- 
^'ation is not endangered by either the icebergs of one season or the 
fogs of another. 

The Dutch have been waked up, and are ah*eady mo^^ng in the 
matter. They have raised a committee on a Hne of steamers to the 
Chesapeake, and placed Commodore Jansen, its projector, at the 
head of it. If our citizens have the enterprise to meet them half- 
way, and give them encom'agement, it is now in their power to 
" bridge tho Atlantic," and bring the centre of Europe and the heart 
of America in close connection, and that too by the most direct 
route that the winds and the sea, on one hand, and the mountains 
and the distance, on the other, admit. 

The accompanjiug maps (II. and IIT.) are intended to show this 
steam route, ^\^th the country geogi-aphicuUy tributary to Norfolk ; 
also the principal works of internal improvement which are intended 
to connect Norfolk and Flushuig each with its back country. 

Those which connect, or are intended to connect, Norfolk with 
the Mississippi valley are obAious at a glance. They have been 
already described. 

Those which connect Flushing with the centre of Europe, are 
also — tho principal linos among them — projected on map II, They 
afford a water-line aU tho way from the ports of Holland into the 
Black Sea. They also reach into other sections by canal, river, and 
rail. 

Norfolk offers also, by reason of her position and geogi-aphic;d 
relations, special inducements to Cincinnati and other Western 
cities, for trade with Brazil and Sontli America. These countries 
consume largely of the breadstuffs and provisions of Vii'ginia, Ohio 
and the West. 

The value of tho commerce lietwecn the United States, on one 
liand, and Brazil and the Republics of South America on the other, 
amounted to $o2, 590,407 for the year ending 30th June, 18G7 ; but, 
instead of being — hko that with Hambm'g and Bremen — nearly 
equally div-ided between exj^orts and imports, it is made up of 
$31,028,204 of the latter, to $18 502,203 of the former. 

Tho greatest difference and most valuable trade Ls with Brazil, 
where the balance of trade against us is in tho proportion of 

• Capt J. ?.T. Brooke. 



100 

nearly four to one. We send to Brazil $5,055,930 and receive from 
her $19,132,951 in return. Of this, $15,386,844* is in cofifee alone. 
This coffee is chiefly consumed in the "West and the North-west, 
and with Norfolk as the place of importation, and these Virginia 
routes for cheap transportation, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis and 
Memphis, would become the great centres of its distribution. 

Before the war, a line of sailing packets had been established 
between Richmond and Rio ; and though but a short time in exist- 
ence, it had already made Richmond one of the chief coffee ports 
in the country. 

With these cheap water lines to the Ohio, the farmers of that 
section would be brought — through Norfolk — in connection with 
Brazil and the Amazon, by a cheaper and more direct route than it 
is possible for them to be by any other seaport. 

And if with Brazil and the vaUey of the Amazon, then with all 
other countries beyond, as with the valley of the La Plata, with 
Chili and Peru, Cahfornia and the Pacific, the Cape of Good Hope, 
Austraha, India, China and Japan ; for our inland States can trade 
through the Chesapeake with all these countries more directly and 
advantageously than they can through any other port. 

The people of the inland States in the Mississippi valley and of 
some of the States on the Atlantic seaboard, have an interest as 
great as that possessed by Virginia in the speedy opening of these 
thoroughfares, and the time has come for it to be done by them, 
by her, or by the nation at large, and that right speedily. 

The next Report wiU treat of the Chmates and Productions of the 
State and the encouragement offered by them to immigration. 

Respectfully, &c., 

M. F. MAURY, 

Superintendent Physical Survey of the Slate, and 

Prof. Physics V. M. L, Lexington, Va. 

* Bureau of Statistics. 



PHYSICAL SURVEY OF VIRGINIA. 



HER GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION ; 



COMMERCIAL ADVANTAGES AND NATIONAL IMPORTANCE. 



PRELIMINARY REPORT 



M. F. MAURY, LL.D., Etc., Etc., 

oiESSOR OF pirrsics, vinaiXLx. MiLiT.vRr institute, Lexington, va. 
Ge-s. FRANX'IS n. SMITH, A. M., ScrPEBCiTEifDEXT. 

MARCH, 180 9. 




SE1002SIID EIDITIOISr. 



\ 



NEW YORK: 
D. VAN NOSTRAND, PUBLISHER, 

23 Mrsa^T Street am> 27 WARiua STitsxr. 



VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE, 

Lexington, Virginia. 



ESTABUSnED AND SUPPORTED m THE STATE OF VIRGLXIA. 



ACADEMIC STAFF. 

Qen. FRANCIS H. SMITH, A. M., 

BuperirUendejU and Professor of Malhematics and Moral Philosophy. 

Col. JOHN T. L. PRESTON, A. M., 

Professor of Laiin and English LUeraiure. 

Col. THOMAS H. WILLIAMSON, 

Professor of Praciial Engineering, Architecture, and Draicing. 

Col. WILLIAM GILHAM, A. M., 

Phhjp St. Gjeoboe Cocke— Professor of Agriculture. 

Col. ROBERT L. MADISON, M. D., 

Mebceb — Professor of Animal and Vegetable Physiology applied to Agriculhm 

Col. SCOTT SHIP, 

Commandant of Cadets, Instructor of Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery Tactics, 
Professor of Military Uistory and Strategy. 

Col. JAMES W. MASSIE, 

Adjunct Professor of Mathematics. 

Col. WILLIAM B. BLAIR, 

Jacxsok — Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. 

Gen. G. W. C. LEE, 

Professor of Civil and Military Engineering and Applied Mechanics. 

Col. JOHN M. BROOKE, 

Professor of Practical Astronomy, Geodesy, Descriptive and Physical Geography, an 

Meteorology. 

Col. MARSHALL McDONALD, 

Professor of Geology, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 

Col. M. B. HARDIN, 

Professor of General ami Applied Chemistry. 

Col. THOMAS M. SEMMES, 

Professor of Modern Langiuiges. 

Commodore M. F. MAURY, LL. D., 

'^'rtfessor of Physics and Stiperititendenl of Physical Survey cf Virginia, 



ASSISTANT PROFESSORS. 

Col. JOHN W. LYELL, 

Assistant Professor of ilnthfmatics. 

Capt. O. C. HENDERSON, 
Assisiard Professor of Fmich Language. 

Capt. J. H. MORRISON, 

Assistajit Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geology 

Capt. ALFRED MARSHALL, 

Assistant Professor of Malkfvxatics and Tadica, 

Lieut. WM. M. PATTON, 

Assistant Professor of Latin. 

Capt. PATRICK HENRY, 

Assistant Professor of Languages. 

Lieut. R. H. COUSINS, 

Assistant Professor of ilaUiemaUics. 

Capt. WM. B. PRITCHAKD, 

Assistant Professor of Gco'jrajihy, Tactics, and Draxcing. 

Lieut. J. H. WADDELL, 

Assistant Professor of Draxcing, etc 

Capt. W. H. BUTLER, 

Assistant Professor of Mineralogy, DUin, and Tadica. 



MILITARY STAFF. 

Capt. R. HENRY CAMPBELL, 

Quartemuister and Treasurer. 

Col. ROBERT L. MADISON, M. D., 

Surgeon. 

HOWARD T. BARTON, M. D., 

Assi'<ttnt S'lnjron. 

Capt. JOHN T. GIBBS, 

ikmimissary and Stexcard. 

Capt. C. A. ELLETT, 

AdjutanL 



' y - ; ' i *— r*-— 

SYSTEM OF INSTRUCTION AND GOVERNMENT. 

T\t System of Jnstructifn and OovemmerU In the Virginia Military Institute Is duttmttw, and Is 
foonded upon that of tho United States Military Academy at West Point. 

As soon as a young man enters the Institution, it assumes over bim an entire control, and not 
only directs bis moral and Intellectual education, but provides everything required fur his personal 
wants or comfort. A Cadet may, if bis parents desire it, remain in charge of the Institution for the, 
entUe term of four years, as tho system of government keeps it always in operation. Tho mouths of 
July and Aug'ist, in each year, are devoted exclusively to Military Exercises. Furlonglia are granted 
to those who may desire it, in turn, during this period. The Cadets are lodged and boarded in the 
Institution, their Clothing, Books, and other su|iplic8, being provided by tho Quartermaster of the Id- 
Btltute al cost. Tho sick are under the special care of the Surgeon, with Hospital and other facUitiea 
for nursing. 

The energy, fystem, suliordinafion, and stJf-rdiance which the military govemmml of tho Institute 
cultivates, give a practical character to the education which it supplies. The high reputation which 
its Alumni have established for the School is tho evidence of its value. 

Attendance at Church and Bible Instruction Is prescribed for each Sabbath. 



DEGREES. 

A Diploma Signed by the Governor of Virginia, and by tho Visitors and Faculty, Is awarded tfl 
nil Cadets wbo may pass approved examinations i n all tho studies of the Academic School, with the 
title of "Graduate of the Tirjinia ilihtary Institute." A like Diploma is awarded to all who may 
complete tho courso prescribed for either of tho Special ScJiooU of Applied Science, with tlft title of 
"GradvuiU" in such subooi. 



ESTIMATED EXPENSES FOR TWELVE MONTUS. 

Tuition $100 00 

Board, $13.00 per mo.vth 180 00 

Washing, $2.00 PER MOXTH 24 00 

Fuel and Lights, $3.00 per MO.vni 36 00 

Surgeon's Fee 10 00 

Elstimated College E^cnses for Twelve Months $350 00 

Estimated Annual Cost for Clothing and Incidentals Supplied at the Institute 150 00 

Total Expenses, hicluding Clothing $500 00 

This estimate is regarded as sufSciont, but as Cadets diflfor much In the wear and tear of clothing, 
and in the care tbey take of it, tho Institute does not bmd itself that this estimate shull not be ex- 
ceeded. It does bind itself to control, by all proper means, tho expenses, and the average does not 
exceed the estimate. 

When a Cadet leaves the Institute before the expiration of tho year, the Tuition fee and Surgeon'i 
fa are required to bx paid for Uie whole year. A ratable deduction is made on all other charges. As 
the estimate includes clothing, the issues for the whole year are usually made within the first six 
months. 

Deposits are made with the Treasurer semi-annually, in advance. The quarterly Ch-culars give 
a statement of tho current expenses of each Cadet. 

Pocket money is allowed, at tho discretion of the parent, not exceeding $5.00 per month, for 
which a ppeciul deposit must be made with the Truusuror. 

As tho Cadets wear a prescribed Uniform, It is only necessary to bring a full supply of under 
CMhinn, with Shoes, Towels, and Bedding; or theso articles may bo obtained at tho Quartermaster's 
store at a>8i. 

Tho Virginia Military Ia<!titute Is prosecuting, under tho general superintendence of Com. if. F. 
Maury, LLP., a Physical Survey of Tirffinia, In which great Slate work, Cfen. O. \y. C. Lee, CoL J. 
M. Brooke, and Ol. M. ilcD(.nald, will bo associated with Commodore Maury. This work will afford 
an appropriate pra(aical fleid of in-struction for tho students of tho School of Applied Science and the 
Alumni of the Institute, and the Board of Visitors earnestly ask the co-< poratiou of tho people of Vir- 
ginia In this effort to prepare an accurate geographical map of Virginia, Including its physical history. 

For further information address the undersigned, 

FRANCIS H. SMITH, 

Superintendent. 



